"Specimens of ochre have been reported from some of the oldest
occupation or activity sites known from the Lower Paleolithic period in the
Old World, including Bed II at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Ambrona in Spain,
Terra Amata in France, and Becov in Czechoslovakia. The use of ochre
apparently increases during the Middle Paleolithic period in the Mousterian
tradition and becomes common in the Upper Paleolithic period.
"Ochre has no apparent practical or technological use until the
development of iron metallurgy sometime in the second millennium before
Christ when it becomes a principal ore for iron smelting. Nonetheless, many
of the Paleolithic period ochre specimens show evidence of having been worked
or utilized in some fashion. For example, the two lumps of ochre recovered
at Olduvai Gorge show sighns of having been sturck directly by hammerstone
blows (M. Leakey 1971). Howell (1965:129) states that the ochre specimen
recovered at Ambrona showed evidence of shaping and trimming, although Butzer
(1980:635) asserts this may only be natural cleavage. Still the ochre comes
from the same horizon as the famous linear arrangement of elephant tusks and
bones and was probably brought to the site by the hominids who are thought to
have killed and
butchered elephants there.
"At Terra Amata, which was occupied around 300,000 B.P., de Lumley
(1969:49) reports a number of ochre specimens recovered from the two
occupation layers associated with the pole structures uncovered at the site.
Specimens of red, yellow, and brown were recovered and the range of color
variations suggests the ochre may have been heated. De Lumley also reports
that the ends of some of the specimens were worn smooth suggesting they had
been used in body painting.
"Clearer evidence of ochre use comes from Becov in Czechoslovakia. This
cave site, occupied ca.250,000 B. P., yielded a specimen of red ochre that
was striated on two faces with marks of abrasion together with a flat rubbing
stone with a granular crystalline surface that had been abraded in the center
possibly during the preparation of ochre powder (Marshack 1981: 138).
Whether or not the rubbing stone was actually used in the preparation of
ochre powder is uncertain, but a wide area of the occupation floor from which
the ochre lump had been recovered was stained with red ochre powder."~D.
Bruce Dickson, The Dawn of Belief, (Tuscon: The University of Arizona Press,
1990), p. 42-43
and
"His list could easily be expanded, but if these ochre lumps can be
taken as evidence of early body ornamentation and the use of cosmetics, they
are particularly significant. Lewis Mumford notes the human universality of
what he calls 'technical narcissism.' By this he means body and facial
decoration, the use of masks, costumes, wigs, tattooing, scarification, and
so forth. He suggests that all of these are part of ;humankind's 'effort to
establish a human identity, a human significance, a human purpos. Without
that, all other acts and labors would be performed in vain.'"
"Even more striking is Mumford's assertion that such technical
narcissism (of which body and face painting are essential parts) indicates
that:
'Primitive man's first attack upon his 'environment' was probably an
'attack' upon his own body; and that his first efforts at magical control
were
visited upon himself.....'
"The presence of worked ochre in Bed II at Olduvai Gorge suggests that the
beginning of this 'attack may even predate the appearance of Homo erectus
and begin instead with Homo habilis or the australopithecines more than 1.5
million years ago."~D. Bruce Dickson, The Dawn of Belief, (Tuscon: The
University of Arizona Press, 1990), p. 44
What fascinated me was that the first possible evidence for art, body
painting, may have occurred with Homo habilis. If this was the case (I admit
this is not proof) then Hugh Ross' view that art is evidence of man's
spiritual awareness is wrong.
glenn