We often think of the Paleolithic as a brutal time in human history, but it was not all kill-or-be-killed. Across the Paleolithic world, one can find evidence of creative ochre use. It is with these beautiful pigments that early humans created the very first cave art, signaling our shift from animals struggling to survive to probing, searching, creating, modern humans.

The behaviors that ochre illuminates paint a new picture of Paleolithic culture. Societies were more than just hunter-gatherer groups fighting to survive; there were complex ideas, languages, shared goals, communities, and cooperation. It seems as though humans back then had a lot in common with humans today, even more than we imagined before.

The human handprint is a simple symbol. It is a representation of us—the first tool a human being learns to use to make their mark on the world. Some of these marks have lasted for tens of thousands of years. Looking at prehistoric murals that still stand on cave walls, we see the echoes of people who made their everlasting mark with a handful of red pigment. Stones and fire helped our ancestors survive, but ochre made them immortal.

This specimen is a dusting of red ochre encased in acrylic, arranged to look like a stroke of pigment against a cave wall. First appearing in the Fifth Edition, we're excited to bring Dawn of Creativity: Red Ochre to the store as a solo item! Each specimen has been sealed in resin and comes affixed to a 4x3" informational card that has more photos and information about red ochre.

The ochre handprint has appeared across many historical cultures, perhaps most famously at the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina. Here, across thousands of years, innumerable artists left their mark on the cave’s walls, using blowpipes to stencil an imprint of their hand surrounded in ochre.

Ochre is a relatively common substance on the Earth’s surface and its abundance made it a ubiquitous piece of early human life. Archaeologists have found ochre at Paleolithic sites in Australia, Africa, Spain, France, North and South America, the Mediterranean, and the British Isles. In its base form, ochre is a rich, iron-oxide hematite mixed with sand or clay. The exact composition differs from region to region, but it spans a spectrum of color between reds, browns, and yellows. Early humans would mix this pigment with oils to create a simple but effective paint.

Beyond its appearance in cave art, humans used ochre for an extraordinary amount of different purposes: sun protection, insect repellant, treating animal hides, body paint, food preservation, and even as a medicinal salve. Recent research has found that human production of ochre is far older than we once thought, stretching back 250,000 years.

Ochre was sometimes prepared with a core-shell technique wherein the raw hematite was ground up alongside common rock, coating the grains with the pigment for a greater yield. At one mining site in Lovas, Hungary, this technique was used to combine ochre with dolomite and quartz. The mine’s unique products have been found at other archeological sites nearby, which archaeologists speculate may be evidence of early trade routes

Archaeological evidence suggests that the pigment was part of a 70,000-year old adhesive. This is particularly interesting, as ochre itself has no adhesive properties. This means the recipe had to be developed through theorization and experimentation. Not only that, but the glue was made with a multistep process, and a variety of ingredients and techniques which called for consideration, anticipation, and problem solving. Anthropologists also theorize that shared language was needed in order for masters of the glue-making technique to train others. All of this evidence points to the existence of complex cultures, cognitive thought, and perhaps even the existence of early industry.