jan 1, 70000 BC - 70,000 BCE - Blombos Cave Art South Africa

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Quote from Cork Uni (link below) -

Home to some of the earliest known prehistoric art in all of Africa, the archeological site known as Blombos Cave is located in a limestone cliff, some 100 metres from the sea on the coast of South Africa, about 180 miles east of Cape Town. It is famous for its prehistoric rock engravings, dating back to the Mousterian period of the Middle Paleolithic era (70,000 BCE), which puts it among the oldest Stone Age art ever discovered. (See Oldest Stone Age Art: Top 100 Works.) The find consisted of two pieces of ochre rock incised with geometric abstract signs, and a series of beads made from Nassarius kraussianus shells.

The Blombos engravings are not considered to be "cave art", since they are not part of the fabric of the cave, but they are the earliest art created by Modern man, and the oldest known example of sub-Saharan African art

Archeological investigations first began at the Blombos complex in 1991. One of the earliest discoveries was a number of stone artifacts known as bifacial points, manufactured in a style which previously appeared in Europe only as late as 17,000 BCE. Other finds which indicated a relatively advanced Blombos culture, included ground and polished animal bone tools, dated to 80,000 BCE, making them some of the oldest bone tools in Africa. From tests on a wide range of fossils, tools and other artifacts, it was learned that Stone Age man inhabited the caves during three phases of the Middle Paleolithic: phase one occurred during the period 140,000-100,000 BCE; phase two occurred around 80,000 BCE; while phase three dated from around 73,000 BCE.

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