Education & Training
Rock art guide training and rock art education
Do you want to know more about rock art?
Enrol for a rock art course!
- I offer rock art courses for Professional guides and rock art Enthusiasts. These can be online, in person, or a combination of the two modes of presentation.
- I develop and present courses and seminars for secondary (high school) and tertiary levels (university and Technikons).
- I offer day visits to the Game Pass rock art site in the Drakensberg, and, by arrangement, rock art road trips and tours. For more details go to Rock art tourism
Royden and guide at Lower Sonja
Rock Art
Course structure: Introduction to Rock Art Guiding
This course provides nature and culture guides with the knowledge and practical skills required to conduct a guided tour of a rock art site in a professional, informative, and engaging manner.
Visitors to rock art sites often lack the background knowledge necessary to understand what they are seeing or to appreciate the cultural and historical significance of the paintings or engravings. The role of the guide is therefore central to interpreting the site by providing appropriate contextual information, identifying and explaining key visual elements, and facilitating informed visitor engagement.
On successful completion of this course, guides will be able to apply interpretive techniques and site-based knowledge to enhance visitor understanding and appreciation of rock art, thereby improving the overall quality and value of the guided experience.
Course modules
Introduction to Rock Art Guiding for Guides
Module 1: the biology of rock art
This module shows how human biology—especially vision, perception, bodily skill, and states of consciousness—influences how rock art was created and how guides can more effectively observe, explain, and interpret it in the field.
credit: Subulelo Madondo
Jeremy talking at a RARI event
Module 2: How Images Shape Meaning, Belief, and Behaviour
In this module you will learn why images have such a powerful effect on human perception, belief, and behaviour, and apply this understanding to the interpretation of rock art and other visual traditions in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Module 3: Introduction to rock art
In this module you learn about the key characteristics, forms, and contexts of rock art globally, and apply this understanding to interpreting rock art as a deliberate, landscape-based human practice rather than isolated images.
Module 4: World Rock Art in Global Perspective
In this module you learn about major global rock art traditions and regional patterns, and interpret rock art within its wider cultural, environmental, and landscape contexts rather than as isolated or purely local phenomena.
Module 5: San Culture and the Interpretation of Rock Art
In this module you’ll learn about the key features of past San hunter-gatherer societies, beliefs and practices, and how ethnographic, historical, and oral sources can be responsibly used to inform the interpretation of southern African rock art.
South Africa has some of the best rock art in the world
credit: Subulelo Madondo
Module 6: Guiding a Rock Art Site – Applied Practice
This module uses a specific rock art site as an illustrative case study to demonstrate best-practice principles for guiding at rock art locations. Learners are not required to access the example site, as all content is intended to be transferable and adaptable to different regions, landscapes, and forms of rock art, including both paintings and engravings
Module 7: Looking After Rock Art – Legislation, Management, and Conservation
By the end of this module, the learner will be able to explain the legal status of rock art in South Africa, identify key threats to rock art sites, and apply best-practice principles for responsible site management, conservation, and visitor behaviour in a guiding context.
TESTIMONIALS
Dr Hollmann is well known as an authority on San rock art. He has published numerous highly significant articles…He can provide the necessary information about the San for students who are attracted by their rock art. He is an excellent communicator who can transform people’s understanding of the engaging images that they see on the rock face in so many rock shelters in southern Africa.
David Lewis-Williams
emeritus Professor, Rock Art Research Institute, Witwatersrand University
The guides gained tremendous value from the programme. The modules covered a wide range of themes…these topics—and many others—provided our guides with a broad contextual understanding of Rock Art.
Zenobia van Dyk
Head Guide, Bushmans Kloof, September 2025: Rock art for tour guides course
Jeremy was the originator of the course content of the world of rock art in the Drakensberg. With enthusiasm, he brought to life with authority the story of the rock art…Jeremy engaged the audience fully, reflecting his long personal commitment to research and understanding of the subject material. This is a story not to be missed.
Aldo Berruti
Birding with Aldo, 2025
A well laid out and informative course on archaeology presented in a way that the layman can relate to.
Johan Huisamen:
comment on Drakensberg Rock Art course, January 2025
RAHMSA
Rock Art Heritage Management of Southern Africa group
Rock Art Tour Guiding Workshop, Francistown, Botswana (September 2026)
I am part of a team of rock art educators working under the auspices of the Rock Art Heritage Management of Southern Africa group (RAHMSA) who will be developing and presenting a workshop structured around rock art tour guiding. The workshop will cover important aspects of rock art guiding, including preservation and sustainability of rock art sites, content and interpretation, tourism development and community involvement. The workshop is designed for researchers, graduate and postgraduate students in archaeology, heritage studies, tourism, rock art, as well as heritage and tourism practitioners, from SADC countries.
For more information go to https://cosmo-art.org/rahmsa/
Course structure: Rock art for enthusiasts
This course is for people who want to understand and appreciate the cultural significance of rock art and the diversity of rock art traditions in southern Africa.
Module 1: the biology of rock art
This module shows how human biology—especially vision, perception, bodily skill, and states of consciousness—influences how rock art was created and how guides can more effectively observe, explain, and interpret it in the field.
The iconic Table Mountain in Cape Town
Rock Art
Module 2: How Images Shape Meaning, Belief, and Behaviour
In this module you will learn why images have such a powerful effect on human perception, belief, and behaviour, and apply this understanding to the interpretation of rock art and other visual traditions in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Module 3: Introduction to rock art
In this module you learn about the key characteristics, forms, and contexts of rock art globally, and apply this understanding to interpreting rock art as a deliberate, landscape-based human practice rather than isolated images.
Module 4: World Rock Art in Global Perspective
In this module you learn about major global rock art traditions and regional patterns, and interpret rock art within its wider cultural, environmental, and landscape contexts rather than as isolated or purely local phenomena.
Module 5: San Culture and the Interpretation of Rock Art
In this module you’ll learn about the key features of past San hunter-gatherer societies, beliefs and practices, and how ethnographic, historical, and oral sources can be responsibly used to inform the interpretation of southern African rock art.
A group of tourists being guided through the Drakensberg
Jeremy talking about Rock Art in South Africa
Module 6: San hunter-gatherer rock art
This module focuses on San hunter-gatherer southern African rock art in all its richness and variety. San rock art is not only painted but also engraved, although the engraved rock art is less well-known. The rock art ranges in age from many thousands of years to the 1800s. It occurs throughout southern Africa and varies in style, subject matter and technique.
Module 7: The rock art traditions of southern African pastoralists and farmers
In addition to San hunter-gatherer rock art there are other more recent traditions of rock art that are associated with groups of pastoralists and farmers who entered southern African in the past 2000 years. These arts are more restricted in their geographical distribution and are part of initiation rites.
Contact me for details