Waterberg Plateau Park
The Waterberg Plateau Park is ecologically diverse and rich and has over 200 different species of bird with some rare species of small antelope on the lower hills of the mountain. Geologically, the oldest rock stratum is over 850 million years old and dinosaur tracks were left there some 200 million years ago.
The plateau was declared a National Monument in 1956.
Human habitation
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Herero.jpg/220px-Herero.jpg)
The first human inhabitants were the San people, who left rock engravings believed to be several thousand years old. A small tribe of the San were still living their traditional lifestyle on the plateau until the late 1960s.
The foothills were the site of one of the major turning points in Namibia's history. In 1904, in the Battle of Waterberg, the Herero people lost their last and greatest battle against German Colonial forces in the Herero and Namaqua Wars. Subsequently, in the Herero and Namaqua Genocide, nearly two thirds of the Herero population lost their lives, and about one thousand could escape to British Bechuanaland (now Botswana), where they received asylum. The graves of German soldiers who lost their lives at Waterberg can still be viewed near the Bernabe De La Bat rest camp at the base of the park.
Gallery
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Stamps for German South West Africa postmarked Waterberg
See also
References
- ^ Voigt, Andreas (2004). National Monuments in Namibia: An Inventory of Proclaimed National Monuments in the Republic of Namibia. Gamsberg Macmillan. pp. 1–3. ISBN 9991605932.
- ^ https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C1784668#/embed/object
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)