By Larrie Stone
Ocher is an earthly clay containing iron ore and varying amounts of clay and sand. Its color varies from yellow to dark orange or brown. It is a source of pigments which are today mainly used in paints; although Himba women in northwestern Namibia still apply ocher to their hair.
There are people who suggest that ocher is the basis of the earliest human form of art and symbolism. There is ample evidence that yellow and red ocher pigments were used in prehistoric and ancient times by many different civilizations on different continents. It was used to decorate jars, seashells, animal skulls, cave walls, human skin, and to commemorate the deceased.
The use of ocher became widespread in the Middle Stone Age, around 50,000 to 280,000 years ago. During this period. there seems to have been a preference for the color red. Numerous sites in Europe and Western Asia show that our evolutionary closest relative, the Neanderthals, also used ocher at least 250,000 years ago.
Evidence shows that the practice of ocher painting has been prevalent among Australians for over 40,000 years. Newly discovered evidence shows that the exploitation of this mineral resource took place in the Americas about 12,000 years ago.
An interesting example of the use of ocher can be seen in cave paintings of common animals of the time discovered in Lascaux, France. These date back to the Paleolithic period, around 17,000 years ago. There are also abalone shells used to contain pigments and a quartzite stone used to grind pigments like charcoal and ocher. At least one artist had used a thin bone from a wolf’s front paw that had one end dipped in ocher to use as a brush.
