This Ancient Lion’s Cave Mine Is the Source of a Favorite Stone Age Color

Eswatini in southern Africa is home to the world’s oldest ocher mine. New research dates the site to approximately 48,000 years ago.
Ocher is a clay-based pigment that was incredibly popular at the time and was used in everything from cave paintings to personal decorative jewelry.
High-tech analysis of ocher shows that not only has it been mined for thousands of years, but a trade network has developed around the movement of ocher.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating things about humanity is the attention we pay art throughout our history. And according to a recent study, we’ve at least maintained that value for almost 50,000 years.

An international research team has discovered that the Lion Cave in Eswatini in the south Africa It is the oldest ocher mine in the world, with prehistoric human interaction with the mine dating back to 48,000 years ago. This was also not a one-time use situation – over the millennia spanning the last Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Agethe cave was mined clay-based pigment mineral called ocher. Sticking to its sources shows the importance of this substance, which has played a key role in giving cave paintings, body art and personal jewelry a richness of color.

In a new study published V Natural communicationsa group of researchers from the University of Missouri confirmed that this particular ocher my is the oldest in the world and gives an idea of how important this natural mineral was to ancient people.

At Mizzou’s Archaeometry Laboratory, the team collected geochemical fingerprints of the ochre, revealing the material’s origins, how it formed, and its history. “We take small samples of ocher artifacts and safely make them radioactive by exposing them to neutrons in the reactor core,” said Brandi McDonald, a professor of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri. statement. “When these radioactive materials begin to break down or decay, they emit characteristic energy in the form radioisotopes— which we can measure using gamma spectrometry.”

The team then added Raman spectroscopy to this mixture, a process in which a laser causes the molecular bonds of the sample to vibrate, allowing experts to measure the energy of that vibration and determine the presence of certain minerals within the ocher. The team also used a scanning electron microscope to take a closer look at the chemical structure and elemental composition of the material, as well as an optically stimulated luminescence process to date the materials by measuring radiation.

Together, these techniques have helped unlock the secrets of ancient ocher, including that it was transported—sometimes over impressive distances. This implies a high probability that there was an ancient trading network instead of pigment.

“By comparing sources of ocher to the places where people lived, exchanged and used this ocher between 2,000 and 40,000 years ago,” McDonald said, “we can see how their choice of raw materials changed over long periods of time.”

In addition, the study authors wrote that they helped develop a framework for interpreting regional differences in ocher. “These communities of practice did not develop in isolation, but were part of a broader system of relationships that were influenced and mediated by social interactions,” the authors write.

“This allows us to ground human activity in time and show how human cognition and social networks evolved in parallel with that activity,” McDonald said. “Understanding how these people mined, processed, transported and used ocher provides insight into early technological innovation and helps trace the history of human creativity and symbolism.”

Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure and more for publications including Popular Mechanics. Some of his favorite interviews include conversations with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.