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Dr. Stanley H. Ambrose is a pioneer of archaeological science - his early work on bone chemistry provided important insights into past human diet and past environments, while his more recent geochemical and ethnographic studies are illuminating social networks through the movements of raw materials such as obsidian (a volcanic glass) and red ochre (a pigment).
Red and yellow ochre in archeological sites up to 300 thousand years old is widely considered to be the earliest evidence for symbolic behavior by cognitively modern humans. Ethnographic evidence for symbolic and functional uses of ochre in Africa is extremely limited. In 2015-16 Dr. Ambrose’s team systematically sampled ochre geological sources in the Kenya Rift Valley, guided by Maasai, Samburu and Dorobo informants. They interviewed users about their traditional uses of ochre, and collected pigment samples from rock art, Paleolithic and Neolithic sites.
Geochemical provenience analysis of ochre is the first step in the process of reconstructing artifact provenance (object biographies), and the geographic scale of social information and symbolic exchange networks. The diversity of pigment sources used at rock art sites provides evidence for reconstructing place biographies, including the scale of social and symbolic community catchment areas. The concepts of place biography and symbolic catchment area will be illustrated with painted sites used by the informants, and a Neolithic cremation site with red ochre burials.
ORGANIZER(S): Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
EVENT WEBSITE: http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/ethnography_of_red_ochre_use