EXPLORING THE GESTOPTEFONTEIN-DRIEKUIL COMPLEX (GDC): AN ANCIENT WOMEN'S CEREMONIAL CENTRE IN NORTH WEST PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

The rock art sites on the farms Gestoptefontein and Driekuil, in South Africa's North West Province, are well-known in rock art literature, but their content, context and significance have never been explored in depth. The two best-known rock art sites are part of a much larger complex of marked outcrops in a landscape that oral traditions imbue with significance. The location and characteristics of these places are discussed, as well as the damage that mining and unsystematic collection of rock art has inflicted on them since the late 19th century. The rock art comprises recognisable motifs of clothing, ornaments, anthropo- and zoomorphs, as well as anthropogenic 'gestural' markings, including rock slides (steeply sloping smooth rock surfaces down which people slid), arguably made while performing ceremonies. Several factors — the rock art, local beliefs about a large Water Snake, Khoe-San ethnography — suggest that the ceremonies concerned female initiation and the celebration of womanhood.