"Rock shelters, occupied by Neanderthals between 100,000 and 33,000 years ago, dot the landscape near the modern city of Bilohirsk in Crimea (a peninsula in southern Ukraine). Archaeologists studying those rock shelters have unearthed dozens of chunks of an iron-rich mineral called ocher. Many of them have flakes knocked out or grooves gouged into their surface, which mark how Neanderthals extracted powdery red, orange, or yellow pigment from the stone."
"Most of those ocher chunks could have been used for nearly anything. Ocher is handy not just as a pigment but also for tanning animal hides, mixing with resins into adhesives for hafting tools, or even repelling insects and preventing infection. Knapping a few flakes off a hard nodule of ocher, then crushing them into powder (or just carving out a chunk of a softer, more crumbly piece), is a good way to prepare it for any of those uses."
Neanderthals occupied rock shelters near Bilohirsk, Crimea, between about 100,000 and 33,000 years ago and left dozens of ocher chunks dated to about 47,000–46,000 years ago. Sixteen ocher pieces underwent X-ray fluorescence and scanning electron microscope analysis to determine use and modification. Two ocher pieces from Zaskalnaya V were intentionally shaped into crayon-like tools and resharpened repeatedly, and a third piece was carved with careful parallel lines. Ocher also served practical functions such as tanning hides, making adhesives, repelling insects, and preventing infection, but the shaped fragments indicate deliberate pigment preparation for application and possibly symbolic or decorative purposes.
Read at Ars Technica
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