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From: Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi>
Newsgroups: sci.bio.paleontology
Subject: Re: Dicynodonts depicted by San people in SOuth Africa
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2024 12:30:28 +0300
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On 2024-09-19 15:27:03 +0000, erik simpson said:

> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0309908
> 
> Abstract
> 
> The Horned Serpent panel at La Belle France (Free State Province, South 
> Africa) was painted by the San at least two hundred years ago. It 
> pictures, among many other elements, a tusked animal with a head that 
> resembles that of a dicynodont, the fossils of which are abundant and 
> conspicuous in the Karoo Basin. This picture also seemingly relates to 
> a local San myth about large animals that once roamed southern Africa 
> and are now extinct. This suggests the existence of a San geomyth about 
> dicynodonts. Here, the La Belle France site has been visited, the 
> existence of the painted tusked animal is confirmed, and the presence 
> of tetrapod fossils in its immediate vicinity is supported. Altogether, 
> they suggest a case of indigenous palaeontology. The painting is dated 
> between 1821 and 1835, or older, making it at least ten years older 
> than the formal scientific description of the first dicynodont, 
> Dicynodon lacerticeps, in 1845. The painting of a dicynodont by the San 
> would also suggest that they integrated (at least some) fossils into 
> their belief system.
> 
> Modern depictions of Dicynodonts show a bizarre creature unlike 
> anything alive today.  It makes me wonder of these depictions might 
> also be a suprise if we could see these creatures as they were.  They 
> were remarkable in somehow surviving the end-Permian extinction and 
> continuing until the end of the Triassic.  It looked ungainly, but had 
> a long, successful run.

When were the fossils described in 1845 excavated? Perhaps the artists got
some information from the scientinsts before the publication.

-- 
Mikko