Near Rasesa, Kgatleng, Botswana
Matsieng footprints
Engravings of unsettled age (holes are natural; the feet are pecked)
On a sandstone sheet in Kgatleng, deep holes hold rain, and around them someone pecked the outlines of human feet, cat-like feet, and a few animals in profile. One telling says the first ancestor climbed out of a hole and walked off across wet earth. A geological note says the holes are weathering pits. The feet are the part a pit does not make.
Why this is extraordinary
Just past Rasesa, on the road north from Gaborone, a sheet of sandstone is broken by holes that hold rain. Around the north-east hole, the rock carries pecked outlines of feet, human and animal, and a few animals drawn in profile, giraffes among the ones that get named. The national-monument account calls the engravings very faint and reads them as probably Khoe herder work of the early second millennium. A longer listing of the same sheet counts up to 117 engravings and three natural rock-holes, and it gives the marks 3,000 to 10,000 years. So how old is a footprint? The two brackets do not meet.
The holes have a quieter explanation, and it does not need a walker. A note on the Loe, the best-known pit, calls it a gnamma. Weathering first cut an uneven base into the sandstone while the climate was wetter. Later, with drier seasons, the overburden went and the hollows sat in the open. Water that stayed in them, and the growth that lived in that water, deepened the pits. A volcanic vent has been offered for the depressions as well. Either way the hole is a product of the rock and the climate. The catch is the toe. A weathering pit does not draw five toes and a heel. The human prints are described with U-shaped or V-shaped heels, clear toes, lengths mostly from 120 to 290 millimetres, and one print of 340 millimetres. They seldom make a left and a right, and they do not line up into a path that goes anywhere. Cat-like prints keep them company.
The telling at the rock is that an ancestor, sometimes a one-legged giant and sometimes not, climbed out of a hole, and people and animals followed and walked away across ground that was still soft. That is a creation story still attached to a real place. It explains why anyone would peck a foot beside a waterhole. It does not date the pecking, and it does not turn a gnamma into a footprint. The wide photograph is the sheet and the basins. The close photograph is one basin. Neither frame isolates a pecked foot, which is its own gap.
No source used here aims the engravings at a solstice or a named star. The story points down, into the hole, and then out across the ground. What this changes: if the feet are early second-millennium herder art, the creation telling is a later reading of marks made when livestock were already here. If the long bracket holds, the same telling sits on much older hunting art. If a “foot” is only a scoop in the sandstone, the count of engravings falls, and the holes remain the geology they already are. The Tsodilo hills are a different rock and a different argument.
Why it matters
If the feet are a creation record, a story still told beside the water is carved into the rock that holds it. If they are rock art of herders or of earlier hunters, the story is a later caption on older marks. The holes do not have to share the age of the feet.
The national-monument account describes a sandstone slab, holes, and engravings now very faint, and it reads the feet as probably the work of Khoe herders in the early second millennium. A listing of the same place counts up to 117 engravings and three natural rock-holes, and it prints a much older bracket, between 3,000 and 10,000 years. Those two ages cannot both be the century of every mark. A study of the deep hole, the Loe, reads it as a gnamma, a weathering pit: first an uneven base of weathering in the sandstone, then, in a drier and more seasonal climate, enlargement by water that sat in the hollow, with living growth helping the decay. That account does not peck a toe. Human prints on the sheet have been described with U-shaped or V-shaped heels, toes marked, lengths mostly between 120 and 290 millimetres, and one print of 340 millimetres. They rarely make a pair, and they do not form a trail that leaves for a destination. Cat-like prints sit with them. A creation telling gives the ancestor one leg in some versions and two in others, and has people and animals follow him out of the water. No solstice line and no named star are published for this sheet. The story is about coming up out of the ground, not about a sunrise.
Photo tour
2 photographs, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
- A photograph in which a single pecked foot can be told from a natural scoop is not among the open pictures used here.
What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- The footprint site near Rasesa and Pilane, Kgatleng, southeast Botswana. The pin is 24.352 south, 26.092 east, the point a site record places by the village. Another listing prints 24°35′18″ south, 26°9′26″ east, about 25 kilometres off. The rock and the pin are not yet one survey.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision The holes are geological. The engravings are given either to the early second millennium or to a span of 3,000 to 10,000 years. The creation telling is current.
- How this dating was done
- The holes are read by the shape of weathering, not by radiocarbon. The feet are placed by style and by who is thought to have pecked them. No carbon date on a footprint is in the sources used here.
- What could change it
- A sample from the pecked groove, or a sealed occupation on the sheet, would replace both printed brackets. A survey that picks one coordinate would stop the pin from having two homes.
What is actually there
- The deep holes are published as natural weathering pits, gnammas.
- Footprints are pecked, human and animal, and they do not form a trail.
- Described human prints mostly run 120 to 290 millimetres, with one at 340.
- One age in print is the early second millennium. Another is 3,000 to 10,000 years.
- Two published coordinates for the site disagree by about 25 kilometres.
- No solstice or named star is published for the sheet.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Are the holes and the feet the same event? | Open. The holes have a geological reading. The feet are pecked. |
| How old are the engravings? | Open. The early second millennium and a span of several thousand years are both in print. |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
A creation place, with feet added on natural holes
The holes are weathering pits. People pecked feet and animals around them, and a living creation telling explains the place as the exit of the first ancestor and the animals.
What supports this
- The Loe is described as a gnamma formed in two weathering stages.
- The outlines are pecked, with heels and toes, which a pit does not produce.
- The creation telling is still attached to this rock, including versions with one leg and versions with two.
What pushes back
- The age of the pecking is not agreed. Early second millennium and 3,000 to 10,000 years are both printed.
- A story told now can settle on an older mark. The telling does not date the groove.
- The two published map points are far enough apart that one of them is not the sheet.
What would settle it
It is the centre because the holes and the feet are made differently, and both a geological note and an engraving study exist. It moves if a date puts the pecking in only one of the two brackets, or if a foot turns out to be a natural scoop.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
Holes and feet as one emergence
The hollows and the prints are the trace of people and animals coming out of the rock, the way the creation telling says.
What supports this
- The prints cluster at the holes, which is where the telling puts the exit.
- Some human prints are large, including one described at 340 millimetres.
- The place is still visited as that story’s ground.
What pushes back
- A gnamma forms without anyone walking. The two-stage weathering account does not need a foot.
- The prints rarely pair, and they do not leave as a path. An exit walk would be expected to head somewhere.
- Pecked edges are a tool’s work. A foot pressed into wet stone would look different, and this sandstone is not described as having been soft mud when the marks were made.
What would settle it
It stays because it is the story the place is known by, and the prints do sit by the water. It is not the centre while the holes have a published geological formation and the marks are pecked.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Open to revision
The split between a natural basin and a pecked foot is well published. The age of the pecking is not, and the map point is not unique. Open is the honest state of the engravings.
What drives this
- Gnammas on one side, pecked heels and toes on the other.
- Two age brackets that do not overlap cleanly.
- Two coordinates about 25 kilometres apart.
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
Weigh it yourself
Anonymous. Nothing here is stored except on this browser. Your lean does not change the assessment beside it.
Visitor lean so far — not evidence. On this browser only; a shared tally is not collected.
If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
The feet are a creation carving on much older pits
The rock would be a place where a story about origins was cut into a waterhole, and the century of that cutting would still have to be chosen between the two printed brackets.
Why it is still worth a test
A date on the pecked surface, and one surveyed coordinate that both listings can share.
Sources
- Matsieng footprints, national monument account Botswana Tourism, the early second millennium reading
- The origin of the Loe hole of Matsieng Botswana Notes and Records, 2002, the gnamma
- In the Footsteps of the Ancestors South African Archaeological Bulletin, 1997
- Matsieng Footprints, coordinate listing The second published map point, 24°35′18″ south, 26°9′26″ east