From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Sat Jun 28 2003 - 23:00:51 EDT
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a business seminar at the Broad Graduate
School of Business at Mich. State. While I was there I got one afternoon to
go to the library to begin catching up on 3 years worth of missed
anthropology reading. One article in particular caught my eye. It contained
a report of the continued collection of red ochre, and manganese dioxide,
at Twin Rivers, Zambia. These minerals, producing red and black coloring
respectively, were found in cave deposits where they do not occur
naturally. These minerals had to be brought to the site. Along with the
paints were found lots of stone tools as well. Below are some quotes from
the article. The implications of these data will be discussed after that.
ìFlowstone near the top of F Block produced a mass spectrometric
uranium-series date of 195,000+/-19,000 B. P. which confirmed the Middle
Pleistocene age of the site based on a previous conventional urianium-series
date of 230,000 +/- 35,000/28,000 B. P. (Barham and Smart, 1996). The
artifacts recovered from the excavation of both A and F Blocks have since
been attributed to the lower Lupenban industry of the early Middle Stone Age
of Central Africa (Clark and Brown, 1996). In 1996, during cleaning of the F
Block sections, a single piece of limonite was recovered from beneath a
basal flowstone layer. In A Block three pieces of hematite were found in the
section in 1996 beneath a band of speleothem dated to > 350,000 B. P.
(Barham 1998:704).î Lawrence A. Barham, ìSystematic Pigment Use in the
Middle Pleistocene of South-Central Africa,î Current Anthropology,
43(2002):1:181-190, p. 182.
**
ìOne hundred eighty pieces of hematite, specularite,
limonite, ferruginous
sandstone, and manganese dioxide, weighing a total of 1,404 g, were
recovered from A Block in 1999.î Lawrence A. Barham, ìSystematic Pigment Use
in the Middle Pleistocene of South-Central Africa,î Current Anthropology,
43(2002):1:181-190, p. 183
**
ìOne hundred twenty-two pieces of hematite (48.4%, n-59),
specularite (41%,
n=50), sandstone (6.6%, n=8), limonite (3.3%, n=4) and manganese dioxide
(0.8%, n=1), weighing a total of 213 g, were recovered from F Block.î
Lawrence A. Barham, ìSystematic Pigment Use in the Middle Pleistocene of
South-Central Africa,î Current Anthropology, 43(2002):1:181-190, p. 183
**
ìThe collection and processing of iron and manganese minerals were
intentional and repeated activities under taken by Middle Pleistocene
hominids at Twin Rivers. The sample of four speciments discovered in 1996
has been enlarged by the recovery of an additional 302 pieces, 3.0% of the
total showing evidence of modification by grinding or rubbing.î Lawrence A.
Barham, ìSystematic Pigment Use in the Middle Pleistocene of South-Central
Africa,î Current Anthropology, 43(2002):1:181-190, p. 186
Pigment use implies an ability to plan, to carry out minor mining activities
and, Barham argues, to understand symbolism. If humans living 350,000 years
ago were engaging in body painting, an activity carried on even today by
modern humans (lip-stick, rouge etc), it implies that they were behaviorally
closer to us than many Christians wish to believe.
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