Red Balloon rock shelter Middle Stone Age ochre assemblage and population’s adaption to local resources in the Waterberg (Limpopo, South Africa)

Abstract

Ochre has been found at many Middle Stone Age sites throughout southern Africa. Much work has been done to document these iron-rich raw materials, their modifications and their implications for past communities’ behaviours, skills and cognition. However, until recently few works focused on the Middle Stone Age Waterberg ochre assemblages. The paper presents the ochre assemblage recovered at Red Balloon rock shelter, a new Middle Stone Age site on the Waterberg Plateau. The site preserves Middle Stone Age occupations dated around 95,000 years ago. Scanning electron microscopy observations, portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy characterization document the presence of four ochre types. The MSA ochre assemblage recovered is mainly composed of specularite and specular hematite similar to the ones of Olieboomspoort and North Brabant. Microscopic observations and infrared analyses of soil sediment and of post-depositional deposits found on the ochre pieces show that this raw material specificity is of anthropic origin and not the result of post-depositional processes. Optical and digital observations of the archaeological assemblage and its comparison with a preliminary exploratory experimental one highlight the use of abrasion and bipolar percussion to process the ochre pieces at the site. The results point to the know-how and skills of the Middle Stone Age populations who inhabited the Waterberg region around 95,000 years ago. This raises the question of whether the specificities of the Waterberg ochre assemblages correspond to populations’ adaptation to the local mountainous mineral resources and the existence of a regional ochre processing tradition. Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12520-023-01778-5.

Ochre use at Olieboomspoort, South Africa: insights into specular hematite use and collection during the Middle Stone Age

“…The ochre assemblages at most Middle Pleistocene and early Late Pleistocene sites in southern Africa generally contain a small percentage of pieces that have been used or modified. Some of these sites include Pinnacle Point (Marean et al 2010;Watts 2010), Border Cave (Watts 1998;Backwell et al 2018), Rose Cottage Cave (Hodgskiss and Wadley 2017), Bushman Rock Shelter (Watts 1998(Watts , 2002Porraz et al 2018), Cave of Hearths (Mason 1988;Watts 1998), Wonderwerk Cave (Chazan and Horwitz 2009), Wonderkrater (Backwell et al 2014), and Mwulu's Cave (Watts 1998;de la Peña et al 2019). Most evidence of utilisation on ochre pieces from this period comes in the form of grinding or abrasion striations on the surface of the pieces, with rare instances of engravings, pecking, or crushing activities.…”