How people used ochre at Rose Cottage Cave, South Africa: Sixty thousand years of evidence from the Middle Stone Age.

Tammy Hodgskiss,Lyn Wadley,Nuno Bicho

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0176317

Abstract

We describe colour, hardness, grain size, geological type and surface modifications of ochre pieces excavated, first by Malan and later by Harper, from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of Rose Cottage Cave, 96, 000 to 30, 000 years ago. Soft, bright-red shales are abundant, and most ochre has clayey or silty grain sizes. The post-Howiesons Poort layers contain the most ochre pieces, but the Howiesons Poort layers have the highest frequency of ochre per sediment volume. The pre-Howiesons Poort layers have the highest utilization rate. Use-traces include rubbing, grinding, combined grinding and rubbing, and rare instances of scoring. The processing techniques are proxies for ochre use. Rubbing transfers red ochre powder directly onto soft surfaces, such as human skin, or animal hide. This is appropriate when skin colouring and marking or skin protection (for example from sun, insects or bacteria) is the purpose. Grinding produces ochre powder that can be used for a variety of tasks. It can be mixed with water or other products to create paint, cosmetics or adhesives. Multiple uses of ochre powder and ochre pieces are therefore implied at Rose Cottage and changes through time are apparent.

Highlights

Introduction and backgroundOchre is an informal term used to group a range of ferruginous rocks containing iron oxide like hematite (α-Fe2O3), or hydrated iron oxyhydroxide like goethite (α-FeOOH) [1]
In the southern African Middle Stone Age (MSA), ochre is thought to have been collected and used by 500,000 years ago at Kathu Pan [9], and worked ochre is present in the 164,000 year old layers of Pinnacle Point Cave 13B, on the Cape coast [13, 14] as well as in the late MIS 6 sediments at Wonderkrater, a Limpopo
The ochre assemblage from the pre-Howiesons Poort (HP) layers has the highest proportion of pieces with utilization– 21.3% (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and backgroundOchre is an informal term used to group a range of ferruginous rocks containing iron oxide like hematite (α-Fe2O3), or hydrated iron oxyhydroxide like goethite (α-FeOOH) [1]. The colour red correlates with hematite-rich ochre, while yellow correlates with goethite [2]. We use the term ‘ochre’ to describe these rocks which leave a coloured streak, rather than ‘pigment’ or ‘colouring material’ to avoid assumptions on why and how the material was used in the past (i.e. Watts [3]). Ochre has a long record of collection and use In both Africa and Europe, ochre use predates the evolution of Homo sapiens (for Africa see [4,5,6,7,8,9]; and for Europe see, for example [10, 11]), though [12] suggests that routine exploitation of red ochre use is a “species-defining trait” of Homo sapiens. In the southern African Middle Stone Age (MSA), ochre is thought to have been collected and used by 500,000 years ago at Kathu Pan [9], and worked ochre is present in the 164,000 year old layers of Pinnacle Point Cave 13B, on the Cape coast [13, 14] as well as in the late MIS 6 sediments at Wonderkrater, a Limpopo

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