Ethnoarchaeology and the symbolic and functional exploitation of ochre during the South African Middle Stone Age

Summary

Given that red ochre is a ubiquitous artefact in Middle Stone Age (MSA) contexts throughout southern Africa, the habitual exploitation of ochre has been widely interpreted as evidence for symbolism, a proxy for the origin of language and as a key element of ‘symbolic’ and modern human behaviour. Although evolutionary explanations generally agree that ochre and the products of its processing played a significant role in the adaptive strategies of early modern humans, they differ substantially in the functions assigned to it. My research aims to address the following questions: Did the various symbolic and functional applications of red ochre provide adaptive benefits to MSA Homo sapiens societies, and can ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological research provide insight into the possible prehistoric functions of red ochre?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Towards a Global Understanding of Ochre Use: Methods, Definitions, and Applications

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