How it began
Blombos Cave lies on the southern Cape coast of South Africa, about 300 km east of Cape Town. In 2008 Christopher Henshilwood and Karen van Niekerk excavated two toolkits lying 16 cm apart in a layer of dune sand. Each was built around an abalone shell holding a red compound. Optically stimulated luminescence dating of the surrounding sand gave an age of about 100,000 years. The team published the find in the journal Science in October 2011.
Before it existed
Grinding or scraping ochre to make a powder for pigment was common in Africa and the Near East after about 100,000 years ago. Before this find, the oldest known pigment workshops and containers dated to about 60,000 years ago, although older grindstones and hammerstones used on ochre had been recovered. Evidence for how Middle Stone Age people handled, prepared and stored ochre was limited.
How it works
The excavators inferred the steps from residues and wear. Pieces of ochre were rubbed on quartzite slabs to make a fine red powder, and ochre chips were crushed with quartz, quartzite and silcrete hammerstones. Mammal bone was heated, probably to extract marrow fat, and crushed. The powder, charcoal, crushed bone and a liquid were put into the abalone shells and gently stirred. A bone was probably used to stir the mixture and lift some of it out.
What lasted
The toolkits show deliberate planning, production and storage of a pigmented compound and the use of containers. The ochre and silcrete came from at least several kilometers away, and some tools were reused, so the work was not a single event. The authors concluded that Homo sapiens had an elementary knowledge of chemistry and the ability to plan ahead 100,000 years ago. What the mixture was used for is unknown. Decoration and skin protection are among the possibilities.
Where it stands today
Higher layers at Blombos Cave, dated to about 78,000 to 72,000 years ago, contain engraved ochre, bone tools and shell beads, so the site documents a long sequence of early technology. The toolkits were found in place, and the site appears to have been abandoned shortly after the compound was made and then covered by wind-blown sand.
