The Abetifi Stone Age Park is currently the only Park in Ghana that houses one of the oldest caves known to have been occupied by people in Kwahu over 12,500 years ago.
Humans are said to have lived in the caves over 12,500 years ago, according to the Archaeology Department of the University of Ghana.
What it means is that people lived in the caves for more than 10,500 years before Jesus Christ was born. The caves are now part of the Abetifi Stone Age Park which sits on 52-acre land in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
The President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo recently commissioned the historic Abetifi Stone Age Community Development Park and urged all Ghanaians to support the tourism agenda to change the economic fortunes of the country.
The Park was established by an indigene of the place, Ben Addo.
The Archaeology Department of the University of Ghana confirmed the date during which people lived in the cave through carbon dating technology in 2013.
The Stone Age began about 2.6 million years ago when researchers found the earliest evidence of humans using stone tools and lasted until about 3,300 B.C. when the Bronze Age began.
It is typically broken into three distinct periods: the Paleolithic Period, Mesolithic Period, and Neolithic Period.
Kwahu features the highest inhabited spot in Ghana – it is where the Christian Missionaries from Basel found their own “new Switzerland” – and the rocky green plateau breathes fresh air.
The name Kwahu applies both to the people and the area and has several dramatic explanations of its origin. One such explanation is that it was given to a tribe that decided to resist the expanding domination of the Ashanti Empire and barricaded itself on a high ridge overlooking the Afram River (Now part of the Volta Lake).
These peaceful people were nevertheless stout enough to guard their land by threatening to roll rocks down on anyone who came after them, and so outsiders called the area ‘’Kwahu’’ which means Go and die!
Source: graphic.com.gh
