Toolkit 1 recovered from the 100,000-year-old occupation at Blombos included a small stack of artifacts packed into and under an abalone shell Haliotis midae. A round flat stone with use-wear marks along the edge and face suggests it was used as a hammerstone and grinding stone; it fit snugly into the pocket of the shell. The upper face of it was stained with red ochre and encrusted with fragments of crushed bone.
Within the pocket of the shell was a 5 mm thick deposit of red compound. The compound was made up red ochre powder and crushed bone, probably added as a binding agent. In the compound were tiny pieces of ochre, charcoal, quartz and quartzite flakes and grains. Also inside the shell was a small piece of rubbed red ochre; beneath it was the grinder, a quartzite flake with stained and broken edges. Also beneath the shell were several animal bones, including a canid ulna, a seal scapula and a broken bovid vertebra; all of these were also stained with red ochre.
The second tool kit was located 16 centimeters (6 inches) from the first. It also included an abalone shell with a red compound on the inside, a grinding stone and quartzite flakes. The nacre of this shell was striated, that is to say, there are long sharp scratches in the surface, possibly as a result of the pieces of quartzite being ground against the shell.
Sources
- Blombos Cave
- Ochre
- Guide to the Middle Stone Age
- Howiesons Poort and Still Bay
- Early Modern Behavior
- Blombos Cave Official Site
Henshilwood C, D'Errico F, Van Niekerk K, Coquinot Y, Jacobs Z, Lauritzen S-E, Menu M, and Garcia-Moreno R. 2011. A 100,000-Year-Old Ochre-Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science 334:219-222.
Wadley L. 2010. Cemented ash as a receptacle or work surface for ochre powder production at Sibudu, South Africa, 58,000 years ago. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(10):2397-2406.
