ASSESSMENT OF THE INTERPRETATION OF OCHRE ASSOCIATED WITH THE MIDDLE TO UPPER PALAEOLITHIC AND MIDDLE STONE AGE PERIOD

Ochre, until linked through cave “art” to symbolism, has been ignored in the Palaeolithic. Symbolism heavily influences interpretation of ochre use, and essentialist views have led us automatically to assume that symbolism was the beginning of language, and what it takes to make us human.  These interpretations, due to past preoccupations with human origins, have changed into “facts” when dealing with the Palaeolithic.

This forces a notion of difference and dichotomizes assemblages, ignoring the complexity and variability in the archaeological record.  Furthermore, periodization and classification of species in the Palaeolithic leads us to believe that there are strict divisions in the past, not considering interaction between populations and their behavioural complexity.  Given a formal methodological framework and the deconstruction essentialist and positivist ideas, which restrict behaviour to the realm of symbolism and “art”, ochre could be a valuable source of information into prehistoric behaviors.  From this firmer foundation anthropological and ethnographical data can be taken to reconstruct life in the Palaeolithic.