The Horned Serpent panel is an area of rock wall including art work of animals and other cultural aspects connected with the San individuals of South Africa, initially painted in between 1821 and 1835.

Amongst the painted figures is a long-bodied animal with downward-turned tusks which does not match any recognized contemporary types in the location.

“As the San individuals are understood to have actually consisted of numerous elements of their environments into art, consisting of fossils, the tusked animal may have been influenced by an extinct types,” stated University of the Witwatersrand scientist Julien Benoit.

The Karoo Basin of South Africa is well-known for plentiful unspoiled fossils, consisting of tusked animals called dicynodonts, which are frequently discovered wearing down out of the ground.

Dr. Benoit reviewed the Horned Serpent panel and discovered the tusked figure equivalent with dicynodont fossils, an analysis that is likewise supported by San misconceptions of big animals that as soon as strolled the area however are now extinct.

If the tusked figure remains in reality a creative analysis of a dicynodont, a types which went extinct before dinosaurs appeared and were long extinct when people appeared in Africa, it would precede the very first clinical description of these ancient animals by a minimum of 10 years.

There is historical proof that the San individuals may have gathered fossils and integrated them into their art work, however the level of native understanding of paleontology is badly comprehended throughout Africa.

Additional research study into native cultures may shed more light on how human beings all over the world have actually integrated fossils into their culture.

“The ethnographic, historical, and palaeontological proof follow the hypothesis that the Horned Serpent panel might potentially illustrate a dicynodont,” Dr. Benoit stated.

“This is supported by: (i) the down orientation of the tusks on the La Belle France tusked animal, which does not match that of any modern-day African animals, however does match the tusks of dicynodonts; (ii) the abundance of dicynodont fossils in the location; and (iii) the regional San belief into a long extinct, big animal.”

“This would indicate that the San might have: (i) found dicynodont fossils; (ii) translated them as long-extinct types; (iii) made a painting of among them at La Belle France; and (iv) incorporated them into their worldview.”

“If so, this would proof that Later Stone Age individuals understood dicynodont fossils a minimum of a years before their official clinical description by western researchers, and made the very first recognized restoration of among them.”

“Even if one thinks about that the Horned Serpent panel has a simply spiritual significance, it does not revoke the hypothesis that the tusked animal itself might have been envisioned based upon a dicynodont fossil.”

The findings were released in the journal PLoS ONE

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J. Benoit. 2024. A possible later Stone Age painting of a dicynodont (Synapsida) southern African Karoo. PLoS ONE 19 (9 ): e0309908; doi: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0309908