Abstract Engravings Show Modern Behavior Emerged Earlier Than Previously Thought
Two pieces of ochre, dated to at least 70,000 years ago found in Blombos
Cave, on the southern Cape Shore of the Indian Ocean, South Africa challenge
previous thought on the emergence of modern behaviour.
 People
were able to think abstractly, and accordingly behave as modern humans much
earlier than previously thought, according to a paper appearing in this week's
issue of Science. Christopher Henshilwood, adjunct professor at the State
University of New York, Stony Brook, and the Iziko South African Museum in Cape
Town and his team found abstract representations of two pieces of ochre, two and
three inches long. The objects, dated to at least 70,000 years ago, were
recovered from the Middle Stone Age layers at Blombos Cave, a site on the
southern Cape shore of the Indian Ocean 180 miles east of Cape Town, South
Africa. Henshilwood's work at the cave is supported by the National Science
Foundation (NSF). The earliest previous evidence of abstract representations is
from the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic period mainly in France and dated to less
than 35,000 years ago.
Ochre, is a form of iron ore, which is frequently found
in stone-age site deposits less than 100,000 years old and may have been used
symbolically as a body or decorative paint, and possibly also for skin protection
and tanning animals' hides.
 Rather
than being outlines of animals or other representations drawn from nature, the
designs on the two pieces of ochre show a consistent representation of the
development of arbitrary conventions to express mutually understood concepts.
"They may have been constructed with symbolic intent, the meaning of which
is now unknown," Henshilwood said.
"These finds demonstrate that ochre use in the Middle Stone Age was not
exclusively utilitarian and, arguably, the transmission and sharing of the
meaning of the engravings relied on fully syntactical language," he added.
The two pieces of ochre were first scraped and ground to create flat
surfaces. They were then marked with cross hatches and lines to create a
consistent complex geometric motif. The discovery adds important new insights to
understanding the development of humans, who are known to have been anatomically
modern in Africa about 100,000 years ago.
Scholars are not yet able to determine if behavior and physique developed in
tandem. They also do not agree entirely on what behavior traits best define the
difference between modern humans and their earlier ancestors. "There is
agreement on one criteria-archaeological evidence of abstract or depictional
images indicates modern behavior. The Blombos Cave engravings are intentional
images," Henshilwood said.
Blombos Cave is a rich site that has yielded early evidence of bone tool
manufacture and fishing, both also widely regarded as markers of modern human
behavior. The ochre pieces were found in 1999 and 2000 and both were located
close to hearths and in an undisturbed deposit of ash and sand.
In order to determine the age of the ochre pieces, two state of the art
luminescence-based dating methods were applied by dating teams from Wales and
France. One method dates the sand grains that lie above the ochre and the second
dates burnt stone found in the same layer as the engraved ochres.
-NSF-
Photo Credits: National Science Foundation
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