South Africa Rock Art May Depict 260-Million-Year-Old Dicynodont

Archaeologist posits that a 19th-century San painting shows an extinct prehistoric animal, suggesting ancient knowledge of fossils.

A 200-year-old cave painting by the San people in South Africa may depict a dicynodont, an animal that went extinct 260 million years ago.
The painting, found in the Horned Serpent panel at La Belle France, shows a tusked, long-bodied creature resembling a dicynodont.
Julien Benoit of the University of the Witwatersrand suggests the San people incorporated fossil findings into their cultural and artistic expressions.
The depiction predates the first scientific classification of a dicynodont by at least a decade, indicating early indigenous knowledge of paleontology.
Researchers argue that the San spiritual and artistic traditions often amalgamated real animals, and this painting may reflect a combination of fossil evidence and mythological interpretation.