Credited to Zambia. The dating of Twin Rivers is debated, and other African sites also have early ochre, so the claim to be the earliest systematic pigment use is not settled. The site's Middle Pleistocene age and the collection of pigments there are well documented.
How it began
Twin Rivers is a collapsed cave site on a small hill above the Kafue Flats in central Zambia. J. Desmond Clark excavated it in 1954 and 1956. In 1996 Lawrence Barham recovered three pieces of iron oxide and one of iron hydroxide there, and new excavations in 1999 produced a much larger sample of minerals. Barham reported in 2002 that they gave evidence for the systematic collection and processing of pigments. Uranium-series dates bracket the deposits holding the pigments between 266,000 and more than 400,000 years ago.
Before it existed
Until the late 1990s most archaeologists held that humans began to act in recognizably modern ways, with symbols, art and language, only about 50,000 years ago. That view rested largely on European evidence and gave little weight to finds in Africa. The use of pigment by people who lived long before Homo sapiens did not fit that account.
How it works
The minerals are hematite, limonite and specularite, a form of hematite that looks like silver-gray glitter until it is ground to powder. Pieces were brought to the hilltop and ground, and a quartzite pestle from the site was analyzed for traces of the work. Later study noted a collection bias in favor of ochres with high iron content and striking visual properties, which suggests that color and sparkle were being chosen on purpose.
What changed first
Barham argued that pigment use was a consistent feature of the African Middle Stone Age and part of the behavior of Homo heidelbergensis as well as of modern humans. He linked it to the stone tools found with the minerals, which belong to the Lower Lupemban industry and include parts of composite tools. He described these assemblages as the oldest dated Middle Stone Age deposits in Central Africa.
Where it stands today
Researchers have since returned to Zambia to trace where the Twin Rivers specularite came from. A field account from George Washington University calls the dating of the site somewhat controversial but accepts that it was occupied in the Middle Pleistocene. Most early ochre evidence comes from South Africa, with some sites in East Africa and the Middle East, which makes the Zambian finds an important record for the center of the continent.
