| Projects |
- Project 1:
"The Rock Paintings of the Upper Brandberg"
- Project 2:
"Climatic and Cultural History in the Enndi Mountains and the Surrounding Areas"
Project 1: |
|
Location: |
Namibia, Brandberg/Daureb |
Funding: |
DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft |
Research Context: |
Specific project cooperating with archaeological and anthropological projects of SFB 389 ACACIA |
Duration: |
1986 - 2006 (directly preceding projects since 1963) |
Aim: |
Publication of the rock art of the Brandberg/Daureb as it was documented by Harald Pager († 1985) on behalf of the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology of the University of Cologne |
Description: |
The documentation of the rock art of the Brandberg/Daureb by the late Harald Pager, which is unique worldwide in its comprehensiveness and precision is published in scientific catalogues (volumes 1-6 appeared 1989, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2006) |
Staff: |
Marie-Theres Erz, Klaus Günther, Lutz Hermsdorf-Knauth, Tilman Lenssen-Erz (responsible leader), Ursula Tegtmeier |
Details on the Brandberg/Daureb
The paintings
About 50,000 depictions in 1,000 rock art sites; mainly between 2,000 and 4,000 years old; motifs 70% humans, 20% animals (almost exclusively large game animals which do not live up in the mountain) and 10% others. Painted with earth pigments (minerals of iron oxide), mainly red, also black and white, some yellow.
Meaning of the art
Paintings were an important part of religious rites, also part of healing ceremonies and social management; they also played an important role as a complex communication system by which the whole cultural knowledge (encyclopaedic knowledge) was remembered and passed on from generation to generation. Depictions of humans focus on the ideal of “community, equality, mobility”, propagating the ideal of a “person” without rank, status, age and even sex (about 80% of human figures are depicted thus); the roles of men and women are less important (only 20% of the figures are unmistakably sexed), if men are depicted they are closely linked to material cultural goods, women are mainly associated with communication and communal ceremonies and rites. Some of the depictions can be linked to altered states of consciousness such as they are experienced by shamans during trance, being an important means used for healing. Animals are linked to the ecological knowledge and understanding, they are in part idealised pictures of an intact, prolific environment. What is widely (if not totally) missing from the art: scenes of hunting, fight, women in the homestead.
Rock art sites
In open shelters and under overhanging rock faces, occasionally also on perpendicular walls; normally associated with ordinary archaeological artefacts (stone artefacts, pottery, ostrich eggshell artefacts). The painted sites were also the places where daily life took place. There is a wide variety of sites: from spacious ones with more than 1,000 pictures to inconspicuous rocks with no more than a single figure. Most sites are located in the upper part of the mountain, i.e. above the 1,800 contour line.
The painters
They were hunter-gatherers living in small bands (about 20 persons), highly mobile, i.e. rarely longer than 3 weeks living in one place. Theirs was an egalitarian society, i.e. without leadership and formal political power. Ethnic affiliations over more than 2,000 years are problematic and minimise historical and cultural development. All peoples with a hunter-gatherer legacy and among them particularly the San – as the oldest people in southern Africa – are nearer to the prehistoric painter than anyone else.
Today
Based on initiatives from the community in Uis (a small town but the only larger settlement in the wider surroundings of the mountain) and under the guidance of the National Heritage Council of Namibia a scheme has been established which ensures that the main tourist attraction, namely the White Lady, can only be visited with a trained guide. This not only safeguards the fragile cultural heritage but it is also a significant source of income in an economically marginal region.
Moreover, for guided tours into the Upper Brandberg/Daureb the Daureb Mountain Guides (who are part of the aforementioned scheme) as well as Angula Shipahu, Efraim Matteus and Toivo Ngihilime are available in Uis. The three latter ones have provided valued assistance to the rock art research of the University of Cologne, in part as far back as the first days of Harald Pager in the mountain.
Project 2: |
|
Location: |
Ennedi highlands in northeastern Tchad |
Funding: |
DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft |
Research Context: |
SFB 389 ACACIA "Arid Climate, Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa" |
Duration: |
2002 - 2007 |
Aim: |
Gaining new evidence on the character of climatic change and cultural development in the south of Eastern Sahara in the last millennia before and directly after the beginning of the Christian era. |
Description: |
Through a combination of palaeo-climatic and archaeological research (with a special focus on rock art research) the landscape and the patterns of use of the people living therein will be reconstructed. The scope covers far ranging relations to the west and to the East, particularly in view of the Wadi Howar (Sudan) developing during the Holocene into an area not suited for living for which the Ennedi provided a refuge. |
Staff: |
Maya von Czerniewicz, Stefan Kröpelin (responsible leader of geographic research). Tilman Lenssen-Erz (responsible leader of archaeological research), Julia Skalitz |
Details on the project
The Ennedi is a unique ecological niche in the remote north-eastern part of the Republic of Chad. This labyrinth-like mountainous region, accessible only with difficulty, is located between 16° and 18° N near the Sudanese border. It surpasses the size of Switzerland and peaks at about 1450 m a.s.l. For the reason that the Ennedi was not affected by the same extent of desiccation as other parts of the Sahara, plants and animals have succeeded to survive in the middle of the desert for millennia. As a consequence, people have been occupying the area until today.Other important landscapes around the Ennedi include the Mourdi basin, the Erdi plateaux and the fresh- and saltwater lakes of Ounianga, which are unparalleled in the entire Sahara. To date, no major research has been carried out in these regions in spite of their enormous potential for various scientific fields. Studies in climate-geography, cultural history and archaeology are particularly promising to produce exhaustive new knowledge.
Geoscientific fieldwork focuses on the analysis of palaeoclimatologically sensitive deposits in the Ennedi (playas, speleothems, archaeological sites) and of sediment cores from the Ounianga lakes to retrieve high-resolution data – if possible at annual or even seasonal scale - on the climatic and environmental evolution in the southeastern Sahara since the onset of its ultimate desiccation about 3000 years ago. Comparable climate archives for this time-slice do not occur in the neighbouring research areas of subprojects A1 (Egypt) and A2 (Sudan).
Among the rich archaeological sources, rock art attains a salient position due to its abundance, its good preservation and its chronological continuity. Interdisciplinary research into the landscape and its cultural remains aims at a model providing a comprehensive understanding of life and the necessities of adaptation to deteriorating environmental conditions during the last millennia.
All research is based on close co-operation with local institutions and scholars. In the long run, it shall lead to a general description of the environmental, climatic and cultural history of north-eastern Chad.
Above that, and in agreement with official institutions and the local population, efforts are being made to achieve a protective status for the region’s outstanding natural and cultural heritage in order to prevent damage by off-road tourism or industrial use that have ravaged other Saharan regions.
