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The Ādam Paradox Hypothesis 108
African Sparks and Fire
The southern coastline of Africa is strewn with sites that have become
landmarks in debates about early symbolism. Each reveals ingenuity, but until
the great threshold, each was vulnerable to disappearance.
At Pinnacle Point, layers dated to about 164,000 years ago yielded fragments of
ochre deliberately heated and scraped. Curt Marean explained that the heating
was not random but intentional, altering color and texture to make richer
pigment:
“We find not just use of ochre, but deliberate heating to change its
properties. This is not trial-and-error subsistence. It reflects planning, control of
fire, and symbolic intent.
” (Marean et al., 2007, p. 905). Alongside this pigment
processing, shellfish exploitation is evident — mussels, limpets, abalone —
showing coastal adaptation and tidal mapping. Yet these behaviors were
sporadic. The spark flickered, then dimmed.
Blombos Cave, by contrast, provides the most iconic glimpse of early
symbolism. The engraved ochres, some with crisscrossed lines arranged
deliberately, represent what many scholars call the world’s oldest drawing.
Alongside them were beads made from perforated shells, some strung and
stained. These artifacts push human behavior into a new realm: identity
constructed through ornamentation. But here too, fragility prevailed. When the
Still Bay cultural phase ended, the engravings vanished from the record.
Figure 11.1 — Engraved ochre plaque from Blombos Cave, dated to ~77 ka (after Henshilwood et
al., 2002).
This ochre fragment, excavated from Blombos Cave in South Africa, shows cross-hatched incisions
interpreted as one of the earliest known examples of deliberate abstract engraving. The artifact is
dated to approximately 77,000 years ago and is widely cited as evidence for symbolic thought in early
Homo sapiens.