SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), Faculty of Humanities, University of Bergen, Øysteinsgate 3, Postboks 7805, 5020, Bergen, Norway; Archaeology/Centre for Rock-Art Research and Management, M257, Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia; Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Schloss Hohentübingen, 72070, Tübingen, Germany.
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Schloss Hohentübingen, 72070, Tübingen, Germany; Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Department of Geosciences, Applied Mineralogy, Wilhelmstraße 56, 72074, Tübingen, Germany.
J Hum Evol. 2021 Jan;150:102900. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102900. Epub 2020 Nov 28.
The Aurignacian (ca. 43-35 ka) of southwestern Germany is well known for yielding some of the oldest artifacts related to symbolic behaviors, including examples of figurative art, musical instruments, and personal ornaments. Another aspect of these behaviors is the presence of numerous pieces of iron oxide (ocher); however, these are comparatively understudied, likely owing to the lack of painted artifacts from this region and time period. Several Aurignacian-aged carved ivory personal ornaments from the sites of Hohle Fels and Vogelherd contain traces of what appear to be red ocher residues. We analyzed these beads using a combination of macroanalytical and microanalytical methods, including scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. We found that the residue is composed of the iron oxide mineral hematite (FeO). Further analyses on associated archaeological sediments by X-ray diffraction revealed the absence of hematite and other iron oxide mineral phases, suggesting that the hematite residues were intentionally applied to the ivory personal ornaments by human agents. These findings have important implications as they represent evidence for the direct application of ocher on portable symbolic objects by early Homo sapiens in Europe. Furthermore, our results reveal shared behavioral practices from two key Aurignacian sites maintained over several millennia and illuminate aspects of pigment use and symbolic practices during a pivotal time in the cultural evolution of humans.
德国西南部的奥瑞纳文化（约公元前 43000-35000 年）以拥有一些与象征性行为相关的最古老的文物而闻名，包括具象艺术、乐器和个人饰品的例子。这些行为的另一个方面是存在大量的氧化铁（赭石）；然而，这些相对来说研究较少，可能是因为这个地区和时期没有绘制的人工制品。来自霍勒费尔斯和沃格尔赫德遗址的几个奥瑞纳文化时期的雕刻象牙个人饰品上都有红色赭石残留物的痕迹。我们使用了组合的宏观分析和微观分析方法来分析这些珠子，包括配备能量色散光谱和拉曼光谱的扫描电子显微镜。我们发现残留物是由氧化铁矿物赤铁矿（FeO）组成的。对相关考古沉积物的进一步 X 射线衍射分析显示没有赤铁矿和其他氧化铁矿物相，这表明赤铁矿残留物是由人类有意施加到象牙个人饰品上的。这些发现具有重要意义，因为它们代表了欧洲早期智人直接将赭石应用于便携式象征物品的证据。此外，我们的研究结果揭示了两个关键的奥瑞纳文化遗址在几千年中保持的共同行为实践，并阐明了在人类文化进化的关键时期颜料使用和象征实践的方面。
