Ochre communities of practice in Stone Age Eswatini.

ABSTRACT: Our species and other hominins have used earth mineral pigments since at least ~500,000 years ago, if not earlier. Its preservation and ubiquity within archaeological records across sub-Saharan Africa are well documented, but regional-scale networks of mineral selection, mining, transport, and use is an underdeveloped field. Here, we present a framework for interpreting regional variations within an overarching ochre-behavioral community of practice. Deep-time records of ochre provisioning span the final Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age in modern day Eswatini, revealing longstanding cultural continuities in the intergenerational transmission of shared knowledge on landscapes, geology, and the desired physicochemical properties of mineral pigments. These communities of practice did not d

SUBMITTER: MacDonald BL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11502791 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature