We thank colleagues and friends who usefully commented on parts of the text: Janette Deacon, Jeremy Hollmann, Peter Mitchell, Tom Challis, Larry Loendorf and David Pearce. Victor Biggs took us to many sites – particularly those first copied by George Stow – in the Eastern Cape. He and his wife Linda extended great hospitality to several field teams. Jeremy Hollmann accompanied Sam Challis to trace the Rain Snake Shelter at Sehonghong, Lesotho, and shared with us his thoughts and images of swift-people in the Western Cape. Sven Ouzman took Sam Challis to the Free State and Eastern Cape, and in particular to the site that may have inspired George Stow’s ‘Blue Ostriches’. Mark McGranaghan and Jamie Coreth took time from their studies at Oxford University to help conduct fieldwork in the Free State and Eastern Cape. Natalie Edwards helped create the image of the South African ‘Rosetta Stone’. Dirk and Lynette Kotze arranged site visits to several farms in the Rouxville area of the Free State. Louis Alberts helped us to search for the lost Stow site on the Aasvoëlberg, Zastron. We also thank landowners and field contacts: Russell Suchet, Willem and Christine Cronje, Liesel Foster, Dawn Green, Jan van Ronge, Will and Gill Pringle, Steve Bassett, Tommie Jordaan, Jack and Kollie Botha, Vaughan Victor and Qamo Thoola. Kevin Crause at the Fingerprints In Time project generously shared with us some of the results of the image-enhancing techniques that he has developed for clarifying very faint rock paintings. Azizo da Fonseca and David Duns of the South African Rock Art Digital Archive (SARADA) assisted greatly with the provision of images housed at the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) and with permissions from other collections. We thank our colleagues at the Rock Art Research Institute: Benjamin Smith, David Pearce, Catherine Namono, John Wright, Edith Mkhabela, and colleagues Karim Sadr, Iain Burns, Peter Mitchell, Siyakha Mguni and Paolo dos Santos. Individual friends and family who have given their support to RARI and to this project: Susan Ward, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. Sam Challis thanks his wife, Kristy.
The Rock Art Research Institute is funded by the National Research Foundation, the University of the Witwatersrand, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and African World Heritage Fund.
We thank the editorial team at Thames & Hudson for their unfailing support, critical eye and meticulous editing. They brought order and consistency to our chaotic efforts and saved us much embarrassment.