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ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE · 02

Tsodilo: a landscape shaped by visits

The paths and rock shelters of Tsodilo

Shelters, paths, water and paintings allow different uses of this place over time to be known.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

Image of Tsodilo: a landscape built by visitation
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

History and context

Tsodilo preserves paintings and archaeological deposits, but also sacred places for San and Hambukushu communities.

Its present uses must be distinguished from traces of earlier periods, whose sequence is not continuous.

Evidence and interpretation

Synthesis based on UNESCO · ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape; UNESCO · Tsodilo; UNESCO · Maloti-Drakensberg. The comparison serves to formulate questions, not to fill gaps in the record with certainties.

Catalogue facts

Civilisation or trajectory
San peoples of southern Africa
Scope
Infrastructure and Landscape
Main area
Kalahari and regions of southern Africa, from Namibia and Botswana to South Africa; it was never a single state territory.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

Protecting also means covering again

In Tsodilo, previous excavations have been backfilled to protect the remains and leave deposits available for future research. The conservation of art has focused on preventive measures, avoiding modification of the paintings or the rock that supports them. It is a form of intervening in the landscape distinct from reconstructing walls: ordering routes, accompanying visits and conserving strata allows the site to remain legible. The architecture of this halt thus includes the natural shelter and contemporary decisions that allow it to be traversed without consuming all its archaeological information.

Location and territory

Physical world map with routes of human evolutionPresent-day world coastline from Natural Earth in an equirectangular projection. The overlaid markers let you explore each milestone.Map base: Natural Earth 1:110m · public domain · present-day reference coastline

REGIONAL AREA

Orientative scope of San communities and landscapes in southern Africa; not an ethnic or state boundaryOrientative scope of San communities and landscapes in southern Africa; not an ethnic or state boundary. The footprint marks the orientative centre of the scope, not a boundary nor an exact point.

Sources and references

Consult the sources of this cultural synthesis

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