Stone Age Paint Shop Discovered in South Africa

Once upon a time, a paint-maker in South Africa stacked up his (or maybe her) tools inside a mixing bowl–actually an abalone shell–and left them in his workshop. No one’s sure what happened to him after that, or why his people decided to abandon the workshop. But we do know his grindstone, stirring stick, tiny mixing bowl and other tools probably stayed untouched–for 100,000 years.

In 2008, an international team of archaeologists dug those tools out, discovering two “toolkits” for making ochre paint. The kits were buried under meters of sand in Blombos Cave, about 190 miles east of Cape Town. A lot of what we know about the first Homo sapiens comes from artifacts dug up in Blombos Cave.

These latest findings, published in the journal Science, are the oldest known signs of people planning ahead and storing things, said archaeologist and excavation leader Christopher Henshilwood in a Science podcast. “It’s the first known instance for deliberate planning, production and curation of a compound,” he said. It’s also the first known instance of the idea of Tupperware. “Use of containers before this time period is unknown.”

Two abalone shells used to mix and store ochre paint 100,000 years ago. The shell on the left has other paint-making tools tucked inside it. Photo credit: G. Moéll Pedersen, copyright Science/AAAS

The recipe for prehistoric ochre pigment was pretty complex. The Stone Age paint-makers probably used stone hammers to grind up ochre, a type of naturally colored clay, until it was a fine powder.

Archaeologists found ochre powder on the surface of this quartzite slab, suggesting that it was used as a grinder. Photo credit: Christopher Henshilwood and Francesco d’Errico

They added ground-up animal bone, charcoal and a liquid (maybe water, maybe urine—we don’t really know, Henshilwood said). They mixed it all in one of those abalone shells, then used an animal bone to scoop it out.

This canine leg bone had ochre on its tip. Stone Age artists may have used it to transfer paint out of their abalone-shell mixing bowl. Photo credit: Christopher Henshilwood and Francesco d’Errico

Researchers aren’t sure what the paint-makers used their ochre for, but they may have decorated their bodies with it or rubbed it on as sunscreen. Today the Himba people of Namibia rub a mixture of ochre dust and butter on their skin to protect themselves from sun and insects and to give their skin a distinctive, reddish shine.

So even 100,000 years ago, people were makers, planners… and maybe even chemists and artists.

Researchers’ equipment inside Blombos Cave. Photo credit: Magnus Haaland