Cave Colours Reveal Mental Leap

BBC ^ | 12-11-2003 | Dr David Whitehouse

[blam]

Cave colours reveal mental leap

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

Ochre-stained rocks have been found in the cave

Red-stained bones dug up in a cave in Israel are prompting researchers to speculate that symbolic thought emerged much earlier than they had believed. Symbolic thought - the ability to let one thing represent another - was a giant leap in human evolution.

It was a mental ability that allowed sophisticated language and maths.

New excavations show that a red colour made from ochre was used in burials 100,000 years ago, much earlier than other examples of colour association.

Study in scarlet

Qafzeh Cave in Israel is a remarkable site that contains many skeletons of humans who lived there about 100,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have recently discovered fragments of red ochre - a form of iron oxide that yields a pigment when heated - alongside bones in the cave. The ochre is only found alongside the bones.

"We found 71 pieces of ochre and established a clear link between the red ochre and the burial process, it seems to have been used as part of a ritual," Dr Erella Hovers of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem told BBC News Online.

The association of red ochre with skeletons found in Qafzeh cave in Israel suggests that symbolic burial rituals were being performed almost 100,000 years ago. This is much older than the 50,000 years that some other scientists believe is the date for the emergence of symbolic reasoning.

The association of ochre with burial indicates that the inhabitants had made the mental leap of associating the coloured pigment with death. Such symbolic thought spurred human progress allowing the development of sophisticated language and mathematics.

"The red ochre meant something to them, exactly what we do not know, but it is not inconceivable that they painted their dead with red ochre," says Erella Hovers.

"It is an example of symbolic thought, the ochre symbolised death. The humans at this time behaved in a way that was not just functional but symbolic as well," she says.

The researchers believe that the red ochre at Qafzeh was brought to the cave from nearby sources.

In layers in the cave archaeologists have found ochre-stained tools indicating that the red pigment was probably produced in the cave, possibly as part of the burial ritual.

Somehow the ability was then lost. After the initial evidence of symbolic behaviour in Qafzeh about 100,000 years ago it disappears, only to emerge again about 13,000 years ago.

The research is published in the journal Current Anthropology

[RightWhale]

Might be related to the rise of color vision. Do dogs see in black and white? Dogs wouldn't care about ochre if that is so, but dogs do arrange things according to other attributes.

[farmfriend]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
List for articles regarding early civilizations , life of all forms, - dinosaurs - etc.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.

[familyofman]

Were the colors added by the Fab5 (queer eye for the straight guy) or just by accident?

[Constitution Day]

Kind of ironic that BBC's accompanying photo is in... black and white.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[CobaltBlue]

My older son did an experiment for science fair that seemed to prove that dogs can distinguish yellow and blue. Unfortunately, it was disqualified because of rules about "experimenting on animals" - in this case, feeding our Golden Retriever, Lizzie, morsels of dog kibble on various colored paper plates. And now he's lost interest, so it remains for later generations of science to research.

[krb]

Yellow and blue have different values (intensities) as well as hues (color shade).

If you really want to see if dogs can distinguish color, you need to select two different hues with the same intensity (i.e. they would appear as the same shade of gray if photographed in B&W).

[Junior]

Ping.

[CobaltBlue]

The dog preferred yellow and blue about the same, and both more than black, white, or red. Whether there is any significance whatsoever, remains to be seen.

We were both very disappointed that the sponsor screwed up the rules. I thought there was a problem to begin with but was assured it was OK. Our vet was willing to supervise, but we were told all that needed to be done was that the vet approve the study, and not supervise. Oh, well. I know it's well intentioned.

When I was in high school, as a science fair project a girl froze her gerbil to see if it would come back to life when she thawed it. No. Duh. Well, that's the reason they have strict rules about experimentation on animals.

[krb]

HAHAHAHAHA! I can't believe the parents let the girl do that experiment!

[RightWhale]

I can't believe the parents let the girl do that experiment!

They were probably wondering, too. True science.

[PatrickHenry]

Do dogs see in black and white?

I had a dog who could identify Federal Express trucks, UPS trucks, and of course, mail trucks. Whenever one of them would round the corner, she'd go nuts, expecting that they'd pull into the driveway, as they sometimes did. No other trucks would set her off. I assumed it was their colors that she recognized -- at least UPS, which is somewhat distinctive.

[RightWhale]

Sound--delivery trucks use odd little motors

Odor--delivery trucks burn unusual fuel

Mind reading--dogs sense intent to deliver

[Myrddin]

I can hear the FedEx, UPS and U.S. mail trucks coming a block away. The sounds are distinctive enough that I don't enough need to look out the window to discern which one it is.

[blam]

My dogs go crazy when the meter readers arrive. I finally figured out why...they had used mace on my dogs in the past. They each walk up to the meter with a spray can in their hand.

[elli1]

"I can't believe the parents let the girl do that experiment"

Having had children who had rodents for pets, I CAN believe the parents let her do it...

[PJ-Comix]

The great leap in human evolution occured when we started painting in beige.

[PatrickHenry]

Sound--delivery trucks use odd little motors

Yes, the postal trucks do. But UPS uses plain old vans -- well, delivery type, with an open-sided step-out type of cab. I don't know what their engines sound like. Never paid attention. You may be right about that. But the dog could spot them through a closed window, and the street is at least 50 yards in the distance. Well, if I can hear the traffic -- and I can -- I'm sure the dog could. My point was that loads of trucks pass by, many of them are delivery-type (I guess), but only FedEx, UPS, and the mail trucks got her attention. Thus I assumed it was the colors that the dog had learned to recognize, and those colors became associated with visits from such trucks. Anyway, it wasn't because of any visual clues from me. It was the dog who clued me in when one of those trucks was passing by.

Which has very little to do with red bones in caves ...

[msdrby]

ping