Laas Geel rock paintings
Pinturas rupestres de Laas Geel
- Date
- c. 3000 BCE (rango amplio) · confidence low
- Place
- Laas Geel, Woqooyi Galbeed, Somalia
- Credited to
- Neolithic pastoralists of the Horn of Africa
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Rock shelters with hundreds of polychrome figures of lyre-horned cattle, humans and dogs, in red, white and black. They are among the best-preserved Neolithic rock paintings in eastern Africa.
Brought to scientific attention in 2002 by a French mission (Xavier Gutherz). The age (c. 5000-3000 BC, with proposals up to 7000 BC) is indirect, by style and analogy; the pigments have not been directly dated. The site lies in Somaliland, internationally recognised as part of Somalia.
What it led to
- a record of long-horned cattle herding in the Horn of Africa
- ethnographic documentation of the sacred herder-cattle bond
- cultural heritage of present-day Somaliland