Researchers find proof of prehistoric pigment use

SHIJIAZHUANG－Evidence of the early human use of pigments has been found at the Xiamabei relics site in North China's Hebei province.

An Upper Paleolithic site located in Yangyuan county's Nihewan Basin, Xiamabei is one of the best-preserved sites in East Asia in terms of Paleolithic remains and cultural traces.

"The earliest known evidence of ocher processing by prehistoric humans in China and possibly in East Asia was recently discovered in Xiamabei, depicting a vibrant scene of life 40,000 years ago," said Wang Fagang, associate researcher from the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

Traces of ocher, stone and bone tools and the fragments of animal fossils scattered around fire pits at the site date back 41,000 to 39,000 years, Wang noted.

Based on analysis, an ocher-rich zone was found, with large grinding discs and balls, as well as broken pieces of ocher, some with abrasion marks indicating that the site was used to process pigment.

Most of the blade-like stone tools at Xiamabei had been downsized. Some showed clear evidence of being attached to a handle and were presumably used for scraping hides, whittling plant material and cutting animal tissue.

"When combined with archaeological evidence found during field excavations, we can vividly imagine an archaic human community 40,000 years ago, relaxing around a fire, grinding pigment for color, turning stones into blades and sharing food," Wang said.

Yang Shixia, associate researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "Forty-thousand years ago was a crucial point in the formation, diffusion and behavioral modernization of early modern humans."

The period, known as the Upper Paleolithic Revolution, marked a global creative explosion and the creation of some of the world's oldest rock art found to date.

"This analysis of human behavior obtained from the Xiamabei site offers evidence to understand the behavioral changes of early modern humans in North China and even East Asia," Yang said.