The world’s oldest mine was discovered in southern Africa by bombarding ancient material with neutrons inside the core of a nuclear reactor. Estimated to be around 48,000 years old, this mine shows the importance that prehistoric humans attached to ocher.
Ocher may be one of the most important materials in human history. It is a natural clay pigment rich in iron compounds, giving it a variety of colors, from deep yellow and bright orange to blood red and rusty brown.
This pigment has been used by humans for hundreds of thousands of years for a variety of purposes, including cave paintings, body art, ornaments, and rituals. In addition to its aesthetic appeal, ocher also has antibacterial properties, which may have served medicinal purposes.
To better understand the history of this material in Stone Age Africa, researchers used a variety of scientific techniques to collect samples from Lion’s Cave and surrounding areas in Eswatini, a landlocked country in southern Africa. An ocher sample was analyzed.
Using photostimulated luminescence, a technique that dates materials by measuring radiation to determine when mineral particles were last exposed to sunlight, researchers found that ocher is at least four It was discovered that “large quantities” of the material were mined from Lion’s Cave 8,000 years ago.
It appears that people have been returning to the surrounding area for the mining of ocher for thousands of years, suggesting that the quality of the material is an important part of tradition and shared knowledge passed down through generations. I’m doing it.
Brandi L. McDonald collects ocher and clay materials in Eswatini, southern Africa, for research.
Image credits: Brandi L. MacDonald, Gregor Bader, Jörg Linstädter
The research team used another technique called neutron activation analysis to determine the chemical composition of the artifacts and trace their origin.
“We take a small sample of the ocher artifact and safely render it radioactive by exposing it to neutrons in a reactor core,” Brandi L. McDonald, professor of chemistry in the University of Missouri College of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement. said.
“When these radioactive materials begin to break down or decay, they release characteristic energy in the form of radioactive isotopes, which can be measured using gamma-ray spectroscopy,” McDonald said.
Chemical exploration revealed that ocher from this region of southern Africa was transported over considerable distances, suggesting a significant level of organization and trade networks.
Above all, this study highlights how ocher had deep cultural and practical value for the Stone Age Eswatini people, and how this natural pigment played a central role in human history. It reveals what has been accomplished.
“Comparing loess sources with the places where people traded, lived, and used loess between 2,000 and 40,000 years ago can tell us how their raw material choices changed over time. ,” McDonald explained.
“This allows us to fix human activities in time and show how human cognition and social networks evolved alongside those activities. How these people mined loess, “Understanding how they were processed, transported and used can provide clues about early innovations and help us trace the history of human creativity and symbolism,” she said.
The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.
