Smeared on shells, piled in graves, stamped and stenciled on cave walls from South Africa to Australia, Germany to Peru, ochre has been a part of the human story since our very start — and perhaps even earlier.
For decades, researchers believed the iron-rich rocks used as pigment at prehistoric sites had symbolic value. But as archaeologists turn up evidence of functional uses for the material, they’re realizing early humans’ relationship with ochre is more complex.
Tammy Hodgskiss, an archaeologist at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, has studied sites in that country such as Rose Cottage Cave, where evidence of ochre use spans more than 60,000 years.
“People may say ochre is the earliest form of art and symbolism, but there’s more to it,” she says. “Ochre shows how our brains were developing, and that we were using our environment. It bridges the divide between art and science.”
