Abstract
SHOULD preliminary announcements be confirmed by subsequent examination of the evidence, a further link in the relations between the prehistoric art of northern Africa and the Bushman art of South Africa is afforded by discoveries made by Dr. Leo Frobenius in the Libyan Desert. Dr. Frobenius, who has just returned from his eleventh expedition to Africa, reports, according to a Frankfort dispatch in the Times of December 28, that he has discovered in the Auwenat massif a centre of supplies for the stone implement factories of various parts of North Africa, with evidence in the form of rock-drawings, stone tools and traces of pottery of two distinct cultural periods, the older coming from Lower Egypt in the north, the later, of a character hitherto unknown, coming from the south. Moving south to the oasis of Selimah in northern Kordofan, Dr. Frobenius discovered a new southern culture with a ceramic industry dating from between 6000 and 4000 B.C. in an area which he regards as having been the valley of a third or ‘Yellow’ Nile. On the route to this centre, 44 stone implement factories were discovered as well as several hundred rock-drawings, representing men and animals engaged in various activities. It is maintained that these discoveries throw a new light on the relations of the art of North Africa, East Spain and South Africa, while the dating of the ‘factories’ makes it possible to determine the direction of culture drift.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Prehistoric Art in the Libyan Desert. Nature 133, 20 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133020b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133020b0