Red Ochre and Human Evolution: A Case for Discussion [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

This paper evaluates red ochre phenomena as a fossil indicator for developments of human capacities and red color choice in cultures. The archaeological record reveals that, from Early Palaeolithic to historical times, the collectors and users of red ochre have always been a distinctive minority (probable exceptions being the Magdalenian and Paleo-Indian peoples). Nevertheless, red ochre practices have persisted till the present, and the patterns of red ochre use show astonishing regularities. Beginning with the Neandertal populations, they revolve predominantly around the ideational complex of death-life-kin. Homo sapiens sapiens introduces the second dominant theme into red ochre symbolism, fertility-procreation. Archaeology demonstrates that it is biology which makes the choice of red color pigments possible; biological foundation and red color choice interact. It thus seems unwarranted to suppose that human red color behavior is solely a process of relating; recognizing is also part of this process. Red color pigments became a symbolic vehicle through recognizing and relating. These developments led to the transformation of red ochre into human (female) blood, a basic element in the symbolism of the "mother" prevalent in present-day nonliterate societies but probably also developed by Upper Palaeolithic and successive peoples. Modern civilized man, with his capacity for abstration, came to use the red color for powerful social and cultural symbols in which his ambivalent emotional reactions to the color "red" became universally expressed and understood.