Strange, I found this 16-plus-year-old article basically claiming the same thing...
‘Oldest’ prehistoric art unearthed
BBC NEWS - 10 January, 2002
By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse
The world’s oldest example of abstract art, dating back more than 70,000 years, has been found in a cave in South Africa.
Scientists say the discovery shows that modern ways of thinking developed far earlier than we think.
The abstract art was found on two pieces of ochre in a cave on the southern Cape shore of the Indian Ocean.Previously, the earliest evidence of abstract art came mainly in France from the Eurasian Palaeolithic period less than 35,000 years ago.
https://www.donsmaps.com/blombos.html
2 posted on
09/13/2018 2:37:07 PM PDT by
ETL
(Obama-Hillary, REAL Russia collusion! Uranium-One Deal, Missile Defense, Iran Deal, Nukes: Click ETL)
Probably found right below the African proof of Riemann Hypothesis.
Hummphf. Scholars!
Not art, a tool. Maybe a tool for sharpening or polishing bone needles. (For use as an awl in leather working...poke holes for leather stitching.)
Could be a handstone. Put grain on another rock (quern) or in a stone troth and run it back and forth over grain or nuts. (Later grinding stones were circular.) It looks like earlier set of hatch markings has been worn down.
An early unsuccessful file...