Ochre in the desert: Preliminary sourcing and colorimetric results from two Stone Age sites in the central Namib Desert

Summary

Ochre becomes ubiquitous across Southern African archaeological sites beginning in the Middle Stone Age and continuing throughout the Later Stone Age. For the last decade, ochre research has focused upon the utilization of ochre, cognitive implications of its use, and of the ochre assemblages themselves. Recently, a growing number of ochre studies have attempted to source ochre through a variety of analytic techniques. This study attempts to differentiate ochre raw material sources with a novel method utilizing portable x-ray fluorescence on ochre streak samples produced from analyses of two Middle and Later Stone Age archaeological sites in the central Namib Desert: Erb Tanks and Mirabib Hill Shelter. This study also examines possible relationships between ochre raw material and streak color using quantitative color values.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

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