Towards a Global Understanding of Ochre Use: Methods, Definitions, and Applications
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)
The term "ochre" is one of the most poorly defined categories of material culture. Broadly speaking, archaeologists tend to identify any iron-containing rock, mineral, or soil capable of producing a colored streak as ochre. This is at best an incomplete definition and at worst is so imprecise that it may hinder meaningful research. Ochre has been reported in many examples of early human symbolic behavior. The use of ochre, however, is a widespread phenomenon represented in cultural heritage from all inhabited continents and spanning hundreds of thousands of years through present day. Some of the best known roles of ochre include rock art pigments, cosmetics and skin protectants, animal hide preservatives, and grave goods.
The dramatic growth of the archaeological sciences in the last twenty years has resulted in unprecedented opportunities for studying ochre in a quantitative manner. However, effectively applying these increasingly accessible techniques requires standardization of terminology and better sharing of methodological advances across disciplinary and national borders. This session will represent a first step towards achieving these goals by fostering communication among researchers with a keen interest in this unique form of material culture and by providing an opportunity to discuss an anthropological definition of ochre.
Other Keywords
Ethnography •
symbolism •
Provenience •
Mining •
Red Ochre •
Ochre •
Hematite •
Pigments •
Geochemistry •
Iron Oxide
Geographic Keywords
AFRICA •
North America - Southwest •
South America •
North America - NW Coast/Alaska
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)
- Documents (7)
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Early Worked Ochre in the Middle Pleistocene at Olorgesailie, Kenya (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Excavation of the Middle Stone Age site of GOK-1 at Olorgesailie (2001-2011) yielded two pieces of iron-rich rock from a well-developed red soil below a tuff dated to 220 ka. The soil’s stratigraphic position in the G locality and the associated lithics suggest it is more comparable to the some of the earliest Middle Stone Age sites in nearby Locality B, which date to over 300 ka. The larger rock exhibits grinding striations exposing powdery red pigment. Furthermore, an incomplete perforation...
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Ethnoarchaeology and the symbolic and functional exploitation of ochre during the South African Middle Stone Age (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
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...
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Ethnography and archaeometry of red ochre use by the Maasai and Samburu in Kenya (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Red ochre occurs in African archaeological sites spanning more than 250,000 years. It is usually considered to be evidence of the evolving capacity for symbolic behavior. If geological outcrops have distinctive geochemical fingerprints then it may be possible to determine the sources of pigments in archaeological sites and rock art, and reconstruct source preferences, transport distances and perhaps exchange network patterns. Although ochre is almost universally used in Africa, ethnographic...
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Hematite (Ochre) mining and use on the South Coast of Peru ca. AD 1-400 (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Located in the Nasca region of southern Peru, Mina Primavera was an important source of hematite for centuries, and in particular, was intensively exploited by people of the Nasca culture for a variety of end products. Here we explore technical and ritual dimensions involved in the mining process. We also present new data on iron isotopic (56Fe/54Fe) diversity from a single hematite source as information that is critical in sourcing and provenience. The new data are compared to previously...
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Heḍt (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Iron oxides and other associated minerals (“ochre”) are among the most common pigments used by prehistoric North American populations, particularly in the Hohokam region of central Arizona where they were employed in mortuary rituals, as body paint, and to decorate pottery, basketry, arrows, and pictographs. This paper identifies the wide variety of iron-oxides making up Hohokam, O’odham and Pee Posh red paint (in O'odham, heḍt) and it considers how prehistoric artisans manipulated earthy,...
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Life histories of ochre and related pigments in the Ancestral Pueblo Southwest (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
What defines an ochre: its chemical composition, its color, or both? The Ancestral Pueblo people of the US Southwest used a range of red and yellow pigments, some of which fit strict scientific definitions of ochre and some that do not. Ancestral Pueblo people also created a variety of paints by mixing these pigments with clays and other materials. In this paper, I consider the use of mineral pigments and paints through time and space, drawing on material from Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, ancestral...
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Perspectives on Ochre Provenance in British Columbia, Canada (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Elemental characterization of ochre sources and artifacts from southern and central British Columbia has demonstrated the potential for, and the limitations of, ochre provenance studies in this region. Using a combination of neutron activation analysis (NAA) and x-ray fluorescence (XRF), comparative elemental analyses of ochre artifacts from archaeological sites and five geologic sources identified evidence of variability in ochre acquisition over space and time. While the majority of ochre...