Livingstone’s 1857 observations of Tsodilo Hills

Record summary

David Livingstone’s travels in southern Africa helped circulate European descriptions of Tsodilo Hills, a dramatic landscape containing extensive rock art and evidence of long-term human activity. The hills are important for comparing hunter-gatherer traditions, later pastoral or farming use, ritual landscapes, and the interpretation of painted imagery. Livingstone’s observations were not an archaeological survey and may not document individual panels reliably. Modern recording, dating, and local knowledge are necessary to distinguish nineteenth-century reporting from the much older archaeological record.