(Image source: Grethe Moell Pedersen / New York Times)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

One of the earliest things humans did, apparently, was paint. A new find from South Africa shows that humans were mixing paint 100,000 years ago. A writer for LiveScience sets the prehistoric scene for us.

“A group of Home sapiens came across a picturesque cave on the coast of South Africa … They unloaded their gear and set to work, grinding iron-rich dirt and mixing it gently with heated bone in abalone shells to create a red, paint-like mixture. Then they dipped a thin bone into the mixture to transfer it somewhere before leaving the cave -- and their toolkits -- behind.”

Researchers discovered the paint-making toolkits in 2008, and slowly excavated the world’s first known art studio.

The tools consisted of bones, shells, and stones. The chemical composition of the leftover paint showed it was made with red ocher, a rock made of red rusted iron. One of the researchers shows how it was all mixed together.

“They took a piece very similar to this -- you can actually see grinding marks in here. They ground it on the surface of the quartzite like that. The powder was then poured off that into the mixture. … Then the small pieces of bone were also added into the mixture. They also brought charcoal from the fire, added that. And then a liquid.” (Video source: BBC)

The final mixture would have been a bright red paint. There’s some evidence they even altered their recipe to change the color. Right now, the researchers can’t be sure what the paint was used for, but CNN reports a few possibilities.

“So far no paintings have been found on the walls of the cave. Scientists speculate that the paint was used for body decoration, or as an antiseptic for preparing animal skins, or both. ‘It may be combination of functional and symbolic reasons...’”

The implications of this find are huge. For one thing, the nearest source of ocher was over 20 kilometers away, meaning the ancient humans actually planned ahead and brought it with them.

For another, this pushes back the earliest date of human paint making 20-30 thousand years. The New York Times says since making paint involves creating and remembering a recipe and mixing different substances, it’s considered a milestone of human mental development. (Video source: Public Radio International)

“Of special importance to the scientists who made the discovery, the ocher workshop showed that early humans, whose anatomy was modern, had also begun thinking like us. … The cave people in South Africa were already learning to find, combine and store substances, skills that reflected advanced technology and social practices as well as the creativity of the self-aware.”

In the bottom of the shells, the researchers found swirling marks where the paint was stirred with a human finger, kind of like a fingerprint from 100,000 years ago.