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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15970442/page/2/Scientists find first known human ritual
Archaeologists discover stone snake carved in cave in Botswana
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience
Updated: 6:37 p.m. MT Nov 30, 2006
A startling discovery of 70,000-year-old artifacts and a python's head carved of stone appears to represent the first known human rituals. Scientists had thought human intelligence had not evolved the capacity to perform group rituals until perhaps 40,000 years ago. But inside a cave in remote hills in Kalahari Desert of Botswana, archaeologists found the stone snake that was carved long ago. It is as tall as a man and 20 feet (6 meters) long. "You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python," said Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo. "The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving."
More significantly, when Coulson and her colleagues dug a test pit near the stone figure, they found spearheads made of stone that had to have been brought to the cave from hundreds of miles away. The spearheads were burned in what only could be described as some sort of ritual, the scientists conclude. "Stone Age people took these colorful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there," Coulson said Thursday. "Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site."
~snip~
"Our find means that humans were more organized and had the capacity for abstract thinking at a much earlier point in history than we have previously assumed," Coulson said. "All of the indications suggest that Tsodilo has been known to mankind for almost 100,000 years as a very special place in the prehistoric landscape."
~snip~
The scientists found a secret chamber behind the python carving. Worn areas indicate that it has been used over the years.
"The shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture, could have kept himself hidden in that secret chamber," Coulson explained. "He would have had a good view of the inside of the cave while remaining hidden himself. When he spoke from his hiding place, it could have seemed as if the voice came from the snake itself. The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect.”
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