200-Year-Old Rock Art May Depict Extinct Dicynodont, Challenging First Discovery Claims
A remarkable discovery has been made in the world of paleontology and anthropology. A nearly 200-year-old rock painting in South Africa may depict a dicynodont, a creature that went extinct over 200 million years ago. This finding challenges our understanding of who first discovered and interpreted fossils.
The 'Horned Serpent' panel, featuring a long-bodied, polka-dotted beast with downward-curving tusks, is likely a representation of a dicynodont. The Indigenous San people, who created this art, may have been the world's first paleontologists, discovering and interpreting fossils before the formal establishment of the scientific field. This interpretation is supported by the tusks of the creature in the painting pointing downwards, a feature consistent with many dicynodont skulls found in the Karoo Basin. Furthermore, San oral traditions include stories of 'enormous brutes' that once roamed the land and are now extinct, further supporting this interpretation. This discovery may also shed light on other mysterious rock art that has eluded explanation so far, as the San integrated fossils into their belief system. The San people may have identified an extinct animal and recorded their findings at least a decade before the first dicynodont was formally described by Sir Richard Owen in 1845. The creature in the painting may have held deep spiritual significance for the San people, potentially representing a 'rain-animal' capable of bridging the worlds of the living and the dead.
The discovery of this connection brings a new perspective to the history of sciences and how we conceive 'discoveries'. It shows that the San would have found dicynodonts before Western scientists did, challenging our traditional views on who first discovered and interpreted fossils. This finding not only adds to our understanding of prehistoric creatures but also sheds light on the rich cultural heritage of the San people.
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