Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T17:17:57.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An engraved bone fragment from c. 70,000-year-old Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origin of symbolism and language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Francesco D'Errico ,
Christopher Henshilwood  and
Peter Nilssen
Francesco D'Errico
Affiliation:
Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, UMR 5808 CNRS, Avenue des Facultés, 33405 Talence, France.
Christopher Henshilwood
Affiliation:
Henshilwood, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Stony Brook NY 11794, USA.
Peter Nilssen
Affiliation:
Human Sciences Division, South African Museum, Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town 8001, South Africa.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Examination of marks on a bone from Blombos Cave reveals that they were intentionally engraved and there is evidence of bone working techniques at the site. Engraved designs have also been identified on pieces of ochre from Blombos Cave, suggesting such engraving was a symbolic act with symbolic meaning.

Keywords

Middle Stone Agesymbolismengravingcut marksBlombos CaveSouth Africa
Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 75 , Issue 288 , June 2001 , pp. 309 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiello, L. 1998. The foundation of human language, in Jablonski & Aiello (ed.): 21–34.Google Scholar
Barham, L.S. 1998. Possible early pigment use in south-central Africa, Current Anthropology 39: 703–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beherensmeyer, A.K., Gordon, K.D. & Yanagi, G.T.. 1986. Trampling as a cause of bone surface damage and pseudocutmarks, Nature 319: 768–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chase, P.G. & Dibble, H.L.. 1987. Middle Paleolithic symbolism: a review of current evidence and interpretations, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6: 263–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Errico, F. 1995. New model and its implications for the origin of writing: La Marche antler revisited, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5(1): 3–46.Google Scholar
D’Errico, F. & Villa, P.. 1997. Holes and grooves. The contribution of microscopy and taphonomy to the problem of art origins, Journal of Human Evolution 33: 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Errico, F., ZilhäO, J., Baffler, D., Julien, M. & Pelegrin, J.. 1998. Neanderthal acculturation in Western Europe? A critical review of the evidence and its interpretation, Current Anthropology 39: 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, T. 1997. The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the human brain. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, J.W. 1995. Bone surface modifications in zooarchaeology, Journal of Archeological Method and Theory 2(1): 7–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grine, F.E., Henshilwood, C.S., & Sealy, J.C.. 2000. Human remains from Biombos Cave, South Africa (1997–1998 excavations), Journal of Human Evolution 38: 755–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henshilwood, C., D’Errico, F., Marean, C., Milo, R. & Yates, R.. Submitted. An early hone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age, Biombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, C. & Sealy, J.. 1997. Bone artefacts from the Middle Stone Age at Biombos Cave, southern Cape, South Africa, Current Anthropology 38(5): 890–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henshilwood, C.S., Sealy, J., Yates, R., Cruz-Uribe, K., Goldberg, P., Grine, F.E., Klein, R.G., Poggenpoel, C., Nlekerk, K. van & Watts, I.. In press. Biombos Cave, southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary report on the 1992–1999 excavations of the Middle Stone Age levels, Journal of Archaeological Science.Google Scholar
Jablonski, N.G. & Aiello, L.C. (Ed.). 1998. The origin and diversification of language. San Francisco (CA): Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Klein, R.G. 2000. Archaeology and the evolution of human behavior, Evolutionary Anthropology 9 (1): 17–36.3.0.CO;2-A>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, G.H., Beaumont, P.B., Deacon, H.J., Brooks, A.S., Hare, RE. & Jull, A.J.T.. 1999. Earliest modern humans in southern Africa dated by isoleucine epimerization in ostrich eggshell, Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 1537–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellars, P. 1998. Neanderthals, Modern Humans and the archaeological evidence for language, in Jablonski & Aiello (ed.): 89–115.Google Scholar
Mcbrearty, S. & Brooks, A.S.. 2000. The revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior, Journal of Human Evolution 39: 453–563.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nilssen, P.J. 2000. An actualistic butchery study in South Africa and its implications for reconstructing hominid strategies of carcass acquisition and butchery in the Upper Pleistocene and Plio-Pleistocene. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Vogel, J.C. In press. Radiometric dates for the Middle Stone Age in South Africa, in Tobias, P.V.T., Raath, M. A., Moggi-Cecchi, J. & Doyle, G.A. (ed.), Humanity — from African naissance to coming millennia.Google Scholar
Watts, I. 1999. The origin of symbolic culture, in Dunbar, R., Knight, C. & Power, C. (ed.), The evolution of culture: 113–46. Edinburgh: Rutgers University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodborne, S. & Jacobs, Z., In preparation. Dating the Stone Age occupation of Biombos Cave, Journal of Archaeological Science.Google Scholar