Ancient South Africa, Blombos Cave

Blombos Cave, Adams Calendar, Red Ochre Stone

Early symbolic activity. (475,000 years ago). Long before people first engraved and painted on stones and rock faces, they invested the rituals and objects of their existence with symbolic meaning.
We can see indications of care and thought that go beyond mere functionality in the deftly reworked flaked stone tools from the Middle and Late Stone Age sites.

Ochre tablets bearing cross-hatchings found at Blombos Cave in the southern Cape (South Africa) and dated to around 75,000 years ago are thought to be some of the earliest examples of abstract representation.

Archaeologists excavating the Blombos Cave in South Africa, have stumbled upon a hoard of art materials which include everything an ancient artist might have required to be creative. Including Paint pots used by humans more than 100,000 years ago. Red and yellow pigments, shell containers and grinding cobbles and bone spatulas - to mix up a paste - were all present in the discovery that, researchers say, is proof that our early ancestors were more modern than once thought.

The oldest man-made structure on earth is in South Africa, it is known as Adams Calendar, and more recently as Enkis Calendar.

Adams Calendar is southwest of Kruger Park.
The site is estimated to be around 75,000 years old, as dated by rock art in the area. This Red Ochre Stone is engraved with what must be “tally” marks. It is one of two such stones recently found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa is 77,000 years old, making them the oldest form of recorded counting ever found.
These Aboriginal Africans would later become the ancestors of the so-called Grimaldis of Europe.

Lion Cavern, Ngwenya, Mountain, Swaziland

The Lion Cavern at Ngwenya Mountain, just north of the Swaziland Capital Mbabane, is thought to be the oldest evidence of human mining in the world.

Carbon dating has shown mining activity for red ochre (haematite) within this cavity dating back to a period between 41000 and 43000 BC. The site is preserved as an open-air museum of visitors and is a popular tourist attraction. In the case of this mine, it is even known where the ancient miners "mined" their tools.

Dart and Beaumont (1967, p. 408) wrote: "Quartz, white quartzites, grey and white dappled quartzite, black indurates shale and greenish cherts were the principal materials used by the miners. These rock types occur mostly on a ridge overlooked by, and about 0.25 miles from, the cavern. Left, inside Ngwenya Mine and bottom right, outside Ngwenya Mine.

The exposures there are patently flaked. Dappled grey and white quartzite exposures occur about a mile and more northwest of the site." The interesting thing about this mine is what was being mined. The ancient peoples were not mining flint, which would be considered useful for obtaining food.

Lion cave is a pigment mine. They were mining red ochre, a pigment used by primitive peoples as body paint for their rituals. The amount of material moved is quite impressive. In the literature, I have heard estimates of 50-100 tons.

But if the entire cavern carved out by the miners was hematite, I calculate that nearly 2700 tons of material was removed from this site. This is an incredible amount of material for Paleolithic man to have removed from the site. Obviously, red ochre was an important item. What was it used for?

Field Researcher: Mr Adrian Boshier, Museum of Man and Science, Johannesburg, South African