page_title: Blombos Cave
section_title: Pigments and engraved pieces of ochre
hierarchical_section_title: Blombos Cave / Archaeological remains and material culture from the Middle Stone Age levels / Pigments and engraved pieces of ochre
caption_attribution_description: English: Blombos Cave
context_page_description: Blombos Cave is an archaeological site located in Blombos Private Nature Reserve, about 300 km east of Cape Town on the Southern Cape coastline, South Africa. The cave contains Middle Stone Age deposits currently dated at between c. 100,000 and 70,000 years Before Present, and a Late Stone Age sequence dated at between 2000 and 300 years BP. The cave site was first excavated in 1991 and field work has been conducted there on a regular basis since 1997, and is ongoing.
  The excavations at Blombos Cave have yielded important new information on the behavioural evolution of anatomically modern humans. The archaeological record from this cave site has been central in the ongoing debate on the cognitive and cultural origin of early humans and to the current understanding of when and where key behavioural innovations emerged among Homo sapiens in southern Africa during the Late Pleistocene.
context_section_description: Ochre – an iron-rich mineral – is regularly found at Stone Age sites throughout southern Africa, and has also been recovered from the Middle Stone Age levels in Blombos Cave. More than 8,000 pieces of ochre-like material, of which more than 1500 are 10 mm or more in length, have been recovered from the Middle Stone Age levels of Blombos Cave. Many of them show use-wear traces from intentional use and processing. Some of these recovered ochre pieces have been deliberately engraved or incised and it is argued that they represent a kind of early abstract or symbolic depiction and is arguably among the most complex and clearly formed of objects claimed to be early abstract representations.
  In 2002 the recovery of two finely engraved ochre pieces – both deriving from the Still Bay units (M1 phase) – was reported in Science Magazine. The surfaces of both pieces were intentionally modified by scraping and grinding, and the engraved pattern formed a distinct cross-hatched design in combination with parallel incised lines. In 2009, six additional pieces of engraved ochre – this time recovered from entire Middle Stone Age sequence dated to between 70,000 and 100,000 years old – were announced. Comparable geometric designs have also been observed on an engraved bone fragment from Blombos Cave M1 phase. Engraved ochre has also been reported from other Middle Stone Age sites, such as Klein Kliphuis, Wonderwerk Cave and Klasies River Cave 1. Arguably, these engraved pieces of ochre represent – together with the engraved ostrich egg shells from Diepkloof – the earliest forms of abstract representation and conventional design tradition hitherto recorded.
  Geometric or iconographic representations have traditionally been archaeological categories associated with modern human behaviour and cognitive complexity. Evidence for abstract representations is well documented in Europe after 40,000 years ago, and for a long time it was therefore thought that the earliest form of art originated there. The evidence from Blombos Cave – and from sites like Klasies River, Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Klein Kliphuis and Wonderwerk cave – implies that abstract representations were made in southern Africa at least 30,000 years earlier than in Europe and that stylistic elaboration and symbolic traditions were common in southern Africa 70,000–100,000 years ago. The incised ochre pieces recovered from Blombos Cave and various other Middle Stone Age sites indicates that there was a spatial and temporal continuity in the production and use of conventional symbols in the region.
  The soft, iron-rich ochre would have been ground to powder and turned into a reddish paint, perhaps for cave or body painting. Shell beads and bone tools found alongside the ochre stones support the idea that the early humans using this cave were interested in ornamentation.
  Yet, recent studies also demonstrate that the mere occurrence of ochre in MSA contexts cannot be limited to a symbolic interpretation alone, but its use may also have served some functional role, e.g. as an ingredient in mastic, skin protection against sun or insects, as soft-hammers for delicate knapping, as a hide preservative or as medicine.
caption: Possible rock art, Blombos cave.
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