Stone Age Tattoo Artists?

Pigments and painting tools possibly dating back 400,000 years suggest that Stone Age man may have had an artistic flair. Given their astonishing age, the objects may be the earliest known evidence for art. Ancient humans used pigments for medicinal purposes, believing that color itself held healing properties, but researchers think the newly discovered paint was applied to the skin, like a tattoo, before special rituals and ceremonies. Lawrence Barham, professor of anthropology at the University of Bristol, and his colleagues found paint grinding tools and more than 300 pigment remains in a limestone cave at a site called Twin Rivers, near Lusaka, Zambia. This region in Africa is also associated with the emergence of modern humans. Modern humans, however, were just a glint in Mother Nature’s eyes 400,000 years ago. “The pigments were used by ancestors of modern humans who had large brains like ours, but who were not quite modern in other features, such as the shape of the skull and jaw,” said Barham. “The name Homo heidelbergensis is often used to distinguish these human ancestors from earlier Homo erectus and later Homo sapiens.” Barham presented his findings at an anthropology conference in Bristol, England in late April. In shades of yellow and purple, the cave pigments are derived from naturally occurring iron minerals (hematite, specularite, limonite) that were available in the landscape near the cave. Barham used a technique called uranium series dating to determine their age. Previously, the oldest paints of this kind dated back 120,000 years. The earliest known cave paintings are between 30,000 and 35,000 years old. Art requires knowledge of symbols, so the Zambia materials suggest Homo heidelbergensis may have had language skills, an attribute primarily linked to modern human. Frank Hole, chairman of the department of anthropology at Yale University, said the find is “startling, to say the least.” “Cave paintings in Australia may be 50,000 years old,” said Hole, “but even their dates have yet to be confirmed.” Hole explains that it is difficult to determine the age of objects that are so old, even with modern technologies. “We know (ancient man) made good stone tools and hand axes, but no other evidence, to my knowledge, exists for sophisticated cultural development at that time.” As for early proof of tattoos, there is one big obstacle. “Bodies decayed, unless they were frozen,” said Hole.