Laas Geel

Laas Geel
Long-horned cattle and other rock art in the cave complex.
Map showing the location of Laas Geel
Map showing the location of Laas Geel
Map showing the location of Laas Geel
Map showing the location of Laas Geel
LocationHargeisa, Marodi Jeh, Somaliland
Coordinates9°46′51.28″N 44°26′37.11″E / 9.7809111°N 44.4436417°E / 9.7809111; 44.4436417
Discovery2002
AccessPublic

Laas Geel (Somali: Laas Geel), also spelled Laas Gaal, are cave formations on the rural outskirts of Hargeisa, Somaliland, situated in the Maroodi Jeex region of the country. They contain some of the earliest known cave paintings of domesticated African aurochs (Bos primigenius africanus) in the Horn of Africa. Laas Geel's rock art is estimated to date to circa 3,500-2,500 BCE.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

  1. ^ "Laas Geel, Somaliland". British Museum. Unlike many other rock art sites, Laas Geel has been dated quite precisely thanks to the excavations carried out in one of the shelters by the French team that documented the site. During the excavation parts of the painted rock wall were recovered, and therefore the archaeologists have proposed a chronology of mid-4th to mid-3rd millennia, being one of the oldest evidences of cattle domestication in the Horn of Africa and the oldest known rock art site in this region.
  2. ^ Farrar, V. Tarikhu (2020-01-31). Precolonial African Material Culture: Combatting Stereotypes of Technological Backwardness. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-7936-0643-3.
  3. ^ Bradley, D G; MacHugh, D E; Cunningham, P; Loftus, R T (1996-05-14). "Mitochondrial diversity and the origins of African and European cattle". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 93 (10): 5131–5135. Bibcode:1996PNAS...93.5131B. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.10.5131. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 39419. PMID 8643540.
  4. ^ Pitt, Daniel; Sevane, Natalia; Nicolazzi, Ezequiel L.; MacHugh, David E.; Park, Stephen D. E.; Colli, Licia; Martinez, Rodrigo; Bruford, Michael W.; Orozco‐terWengel, Pablo (2018-07-23). "Domestication of cattle: Two or three events?". Evolutionary Applications. 12 (1): 123–136. doi:10.1111/eva.12674. ISSN 1752-4571. PMC 6304694. PMID 30622640.
  5. ^ Mwai, Okeyo; Hanotte, Olivier; Kwon, Young-Jun; Cho, Seoae (July 2015). "African Indigenous Cattle: Unique Genetic Resources in a Rapidly Changing World". Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences. 28 (7): 911–921. doi:10.5713/ajas.15.0002R. ISSN 1011-2367. PMC 4478499. PMID 26104394.
  6. ^ Brass, Michael (2018-03-01). "Early North African Cattle Domestication and Its Ecological Setting: A Reassessment". Journal of World Prehistory. 31 (1): 81–115. doi:10.1007/s10963-017-9112-9. ISSN 1573-7802.