KONDOA, Oct. 10 -- THERE are places in Tanzania where history is preserved in museums, old buildings and archaeological objects, but in the hills of Kondoa in central Tanzania, history remains remarkably close to the landscape itself, painted onto the walls of natural rock shelters where generations of people left behind images that continue to offer clues about how earlier communities lived, hunted, travelled, worshipped and understood the world around them.

Hidden among the rocky slopes of the Maasai Escarpment along the eastern side of the Great Rift Valley, the Kondoa Rock-Art Sites form one of Tanzanias most important cultural heritage landscapes and, since their inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006, have become an ...