Ancient site · Rock art
Apollo 11 Cave
Also known as Goachanas
A rock shelter in the far south of Namibia, named by its German excavator, Wolfgang Erich Wendt, after the Apollo 11 Moon mission, which had just returned to Earth. Seven loose quartzite slabs painted with animals, including a zebra-like animal and a creature that mixes antelope and cat, were found in layers about 30,000 years old.
They are the oldest figurative art known in Africa. People used the shelter on and off for tens of thousands of years, long before farming or writing.
- Dates
- painted slabs c. 28,000 BCE (about 30,000 years old)
- Still standing
- Yes
- Location
- 27.75° S, 17.10° E
How we know
No writing existed; the painted stones are dated by radiocarbon on charcoal from the layers they lay in.
Nearby sites
- Lydenburg Heads site c. 500 CE
- Shum Laka used from c. 30,000 years ago to c. 400 years ago; burials c. 6000 and 1000 BCE
- Lothagam North Pillar Site c. 3000–2300 BCE
- Taruga c. 600–200 BCE (iron smelting c. 4th–3rd century BCE)
- Nok c. 1500 BCE – 1 CE; terracottas from c. 900 BCE
- Gobero c. 7700–6200 and 5200–2500 BCE