A group of home sapiens came across a cave on the picturesque coast of South Africa about 100,000 years ago. Discharged their things and went to work, correct iron-rich, dirt and mix gently with the bone heated in abalone shells to create a red paint, as the mixture. Then he sank a fine bone in the mix to transfer to another location before leaving the cave - and tools - behind.
Scientists have now revealed their Paint-Making Kit, sitting in a cave layer of sand dune, just as they were 100,000 years ago. Research is the oldest known example of artificial mixture of compounds, says researcher Christopher Henshilwood, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It 'also the first known example of the use of a container anywhere in the world, 40,000 years in the following example, Henshilwood said the science live.
"For me, it is an important indicator of how technologically advanced people had 100,000 years ago," said Henshilwood. "If this was the goal, it also demonstrates the likelihood that people will use the materials in a symbolic way 100,000 years ago."
Together with toolkits, Henshilwood team of archaeologists said found pieces of ocher or clay colored, engraved with abstract designs.
An exciting find
Reports of their findings Friday in the journal Science, researchers paint a picture of a small group of hunters and gatherers, who spent very little time, maybe a day or two, in the seaside town 186 miles from the cave (300 kilometers) east of Cape Town.
This cave, now known as Blombos Cave, has been excavated since 1992. Cave clearly used to shelter tens of thousands of years of human history, where the younger rock layers provide evidence of fires, and food debris.
"Level directly above this" - one in which the goal of decision-making tools to be discovered - was "full of seafood and food remains such as bones and fireplaces," said Henshilwood. "But this is particularly layer seemed to be mostly sand or sand dune. And then we have identified two shells of abalone."
After three days of careful archaeology excavation, archaeologists one of the tanks were covered with a red substance.
"We are excited immediately," Henshilwood said.
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The coating proved to be done to combine okra, soft, iron-rich clay is used and the earliest forms of paint pigment. Ocher pigments may have to decorate the body or clothing of stone over the centuries in between, but also a mixture of glue will not work - perhaps attaching handles for stone tools.
Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of Witwatersrand, told Live Science in an email: "Since the ocher-rich compounds have many uses, it is necessary to conduct experiments to test the effectiveness of the old recipe as paint, glue or other product. "
"My experimental work suggests that the mixture should be a powerful glue, but I have not used a specific combination of ingredients found in Blombos," said Wadley, who was not involved to find.
The oldest recipe
The combination of ingredients can not say how many researchers mixture antique was used, but other objects reveal how it was made. With shells and fragments of ocher were various, including the shoulder blade of a seal, and a number of quartzite stone that was used for grinding ocher.
"They were all posing next to the shells, so that each shell had its own small toolkit related" Henshilwood said.
The recipe seemed to require ochres of earth mixed with the bone removed by heating oil in the bone marrow. Heated, crushed bone was mixed with charcoal, and okra and mix envelopes, bearing the traces of sand and quartz chips. A kind of liquid, perhaps water or urine, could be added to the pigment spread, Henshilwood said.
Archaeologists also found a thin piece of bone about 2 inches (6 centimeters) long stained red at one end. Apparently, the bone had been used as a brush to paint with the pigment as a ball or to transfer the mixture into another container.
No matter what the use of the compound, Henshilwood and Wadley agreed that his life reveals that our ancestors were a smart group. Hunter-gatherers knew what they collect to make the paint, and took the ocher of 12 miles (20 km) away, suggesting intelligent planning. In fact, as Henshilwood, pigments and oil binders mix they have created is almost the same as the income of the paint used in ancient Egypt as a few thousand years.
"They should have a basic knowledge of chemistry," Henshilwood said. "And I had a prescription for this compound or paint."
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