For as long as humans have set eyes on Earth, we’ve been besotted with red – the color of blood, lust, luck, pain, and passion. It’s the first primary color we’re able to see as babies and the early introduction leaves a lasting impression on us. Forget soothing blues and luscious greens, it’s red that captured the imagination of our distant ancestors, who wielded the color in great abundance to paint their bodies, decorate their ornaments, and fuel their rituals.
Seeing red
Harnessing its chromatic qualities wasn’t always easy, but fortunately, the planet provided a path. Prehistoric humans widely used a material known as ocher, a natural earth pigment composed of clay, sand, and iron oxide, which gives it a characteristic rusty hue. Brown, earthy tones are the easiest to unearth, but evidence shows humans had a clear affiliation for the ocher that was most vibrant and rouge in color.
According to the archaeological record, humans started using the material somewhere between 500,000 to 330,000 years ago, around the time Homo sapiens were evolving.
“Ochre use is so old, at least as old as our species itself,” Rimtautas Dapschauskas, an expert on the evolutionary origin of rituals at the University of Tübingen and the University of Heidelberg, told IFLScience.
A 2022 study by Dapschauskas and co-authors located evidence of humans using ocher pigments at several sites across southern and eastern Africa in an initial phase that spanned between 500,000 to 330,000 years ago. As the millennia passed, the pigment became a habitual cultural practice across southern, eastern, and northern Africa starting about 160,000 years ago.
It’s possible that ocher wasn’t the only pigment being exploited by color-hungry humans around this time. Ocher is essentially an inorganic rock, meaning it tends to stick around for much longer than organic pigments made from berries, roots, or other plant material. Furthermore, these kinds of organic colorants are more likely to be found in tropical regions, like Central Africa, locations where the damp rainforest does not preserve materials well. Perhaps other pigments were around, but proof of their presence has since been wiped from the Earth.
While there are undoubtedly gaps in the archaeological record, it is evident that ocher use was very widespread in Africa during the Middle Paleolithic.
Red rituals
The “$100,000 question”, Dapschauskas says, is why the colorful material became so prolific across the continent around this time. Some archaeologists argue it was purely practical. Evidence does indicate that ocher may have been a crucial ingredient in various technological innovations in the Paleolithic era, such as sunscreen, insect repellent, the tanning of animal skins, and glue-like adhesives.
We see over many, many generations over thousands of years that people preferred blood red hues over brown, orange, white, or black manganese, which would also be easily available in the landscape. But no: they used red, especially blood red and bright red.
Rimtautas Dapschauskas
However, others believe something less tangible was afoot. There is a strong case to be made that ocher – particularly red ocher – was primarily used for ritualistic, symbolic, and esthetic means.
Some of the clearest indications of this come in the form of seashells crafted into ornamental beads. Across Stone Age Africa, many shells have been found covered in iron oxide, indicating they were in close contact with red ocher. It’s possible the red coloring was directly applied to the beads or, alternatively, they picked it up after being worn by a human who had covered their skin in pigment.
Indeed, many archaeologists associate the use of red ocher with body paint. It’s not hard to imagine an emotionally charged ritual involving rhythm and movement where people stained their skin with scarlet pigment, utilizing the color’s properties to evoke an instinctive response. If that picture is accurate, it would indicate a very early example of symbolic, ritualistic behavior – a major milestone in the cultural development of humankind.
People were especially enticed by the esthetic quality of the red material. Other pigments were around at the time, such as yellow ocher from weathered shales or black manganese, but there was clear favoritism for red ocher. It’s apparent that ancient people went to huge lengths to source and process the finest red ocher that was rich and bright in tone, despite it offering no immediate help for our survival.
“We see over many, many generations over thousands of years that people preferred blood red hues over brown, orange, white, or black manganese, which would also be easily available in the landscape. But no: they used red, especially blood red and bright red,” notes Dapschauskas.
“Some of the behaviors in the archaeological record are really costly. Sometimes people walked more than 100 kilometers [62 miles] just to get high-quality material that they were not using for practical purposes – not for eating, not for hunting, not for shelter – but for non-utilitarian purposes, whatever they may be,” he said.
One of the oddest and most spectacular uses of red ocher comes from a 49,000-year-old site in Sibudu, South Africa. Here, archaeologists have found evidence of prehistoric people making a special liquid out of ocher and the milk of a bovid. This was long before the domestication of cattle, so they must have obtained the milk by hunting a lactating wild animal.
Strangest of all, why would they waste precious milk? The Paleolithic was not a plentiful time of surplus and it wouldn’t be wise to squander calories – unless you had something very important in mind.
Red in art
Homo sapiens began migrating out of Africa approximately 60,000 to 70,000 years ago (this figure is likely to change, but that’s what the current archaeological and genetic evidence suggests).
Upon leaving their homeland, the waves of humans brought their innate propensity towards colors and their knowledge of how to harness them. Ocher, once again, became prolifically used across Eurasia and Australasia where it is naturally deposited in cliffs, seashores, and caverns.
I think the initial motivation to use blood red pigment stemmed from this very primordial and ancient psychological effect which the color has on our perception.
Rimtautas Dapschauskas,
When we started marking cave paintings in the form of non-figurative art, red ocher was the medium of choice.
“Non-figurative art is typically marks left of the body, usually with red ochre, either covering a fingertip with a red ochre paint and pressing it to the wall, or more commonly putting your hand on the wall and spitting pigment at it to leave what we call ‘hand stencils’. And a few other things, like washes of red color on nice white stalagmites,” Professor Paul Pettitt, an archaeologist specializing in Paleolithic art at the University of Durham, told IFLScience.
Abstract paintings and simple stencils eventually paved the way for figurative cave art that depicted animals, humans, and other visions of reality. The artworks’ forms and meanings became increasingly complex, but the color palette rarely swayed from rusty brown, charcoal black, and claret red.
We see this tried-and-tested formula throughout the art of the Upper Paleolithic, most notably the Lascaux Cave of France – the Sistine Chapel of the Stone Age – which heavily relied on iron-rich ocher to illustrate its hordes of prehistoric beasts.
Red, red ocher goes to my head
It’s no surprise that red was the color of choice in the Paleolithic. Throughout our history, red has attracted humans, from the robes of Catholic cardinals and revolutionary flags to the vermilion Shinto shrines and medieval depictions of Christ’s blood.
Cross-cultural experiments have suggested the perception of red can vary slightly across different societies and historical epochs. In China, red is famously associated with good fortune and prosperity, while Westerners are more inclined to link it to passion and love.
That said, research has shown that red, regardless of where you were raised, evokes a potent reaction on a subconscious level. Red can attract us to mates and fuel our sexual desire. Simultaneously, it can subconsciously instruct us to avoid danger – like a flashing stop light or a scorching hot stovetop.
One way or another, red “highlight[s] the relevance of a goal-related stimulus and correspondingly intensifies the perceivers’ attentional reaction to it,” according to a 2014 study.
Studies of monkeys further suggest that red stimuli can spark profound responses and speak to their strongest desires: food and sex. Red is used in the social signaling and mate selection of primates, most notably in the rosy backsides of baboons, but it also helps them spot ripe fruit among green foliage.
All of this could indicate there is a deep evolutionary basis for the color’s power over us. We see its use emerge and expand at the same time humans were forging complex social behavior, fueled by rituals and symbolism. Was the color red the catalyst behind it all?
“I think the initial motivation to use blood red pigment stemmed from this very primordial and ancient psychological effect which the color has on our perception. It’s something very, very ancient. And I think that early Homo sapiens or [their] predecessors were attracted to this material because of this ancient psychological reaction,” Dapschauskas said.
“Blood is red in most vertebrates. It has an inherent signaling property, even in other species,” he explained. “There’s something really deep evolutionary going on.”
This article first appeared in Issue 26 of our digital magazine CURIOUS. Subscribe and never miss an issue.
Source Link: What Was The Earliest Human Use Of Color?
