CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Archaeologists say a South African cave contains evidence of a 100,000-year-old workshop with tools and ingredients used to mix some of the world's first paint.
A team of African, European and U.S. researchers made the discovery at Blombos Cave, 200 miles east of Cape Town, The New York Times reported Thursday.
In the cave they found stones for pounding and grinding dirt enriched with a kind of iron oxide into a colorful reddish-brown powder known as ocher, along with large abalone shells where the paint was liquefied, stirred and scooped out with a bone spatula.
Previously, no evidence of paint making had been found older than 60,000 years, so the finding pushes back the date when modern Homo sapiens starting using paint for symbolic and decorative purposes, the researchers said.
The findings suggest early humans were beginning to develop conceptual abilities even 100,000 years ago.
In an article published in the journal Science, scientists said it marked "a benchmark in the evolution of complex human cognition."
