An article in the January/February 2012 issue of Archaeology magazine describes what are believed to be the world’s oldest known paint supplies, which appear to have been manufactured about 100,000 years ago in a production shop that may also be candidate for the "world’s oldest" factory.
Blombos Cave in South Africa has yielded a number of "world’s oldest" artifacts over the last many years, and the discovery of two abalone shells containing mineral residue and ochre should not surprise anyone familiar with excavations at the cave. The excavators also found what may have been primitive mortars and pestles used to grind the red and yellow ochre pigments, along with other tools that the owner may have used repeatedly over a period of time.
Red ochre, in particular, was used during that time as a part of early funeral practices when it was scattered over the corpse prior to burial. But the evidence found at Blombos Cave indicates that the ochre was used either for creating paintings, or possibly for body decoration, or both.
In Europe, no evidence for the manufacture and use of such "paints" exists much before 35,000 to 37,000 years BC, when the famous cave paintings in caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet were created. Were the people living in what is now southwestern South Africa that far ahead of those living elsewhere in the world 100,000 years ago?
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