History › Human origins › Homo sapiens: modern humans
Earliest symbolic art (Blombos Cave)
c. 100,000–75,000 years ago, South Africa· Book, artwork, monument or document· Middle East & Africa
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
Blombos Cave in South Africa holds some of the oldest known symbolic objects: engraved ochre, shell beads and an ochre 'paint kit'.
See it on the History map →What happened
On a cliff above the Indian Ocean about 300 km east of Cape Town, Christopher Henshilwood's team has dug since 1991. They found two abalone shells used to mix red ochre paint about 100,000 years ago; ochre pieces engraved with cross-hatched lines and pierced snail-shell beads about 75,000 years old; and a stone flake with a crosshatch drawn in ochre crayon about 73,000 years ago, the oldest known drawing.
Why it matters
Symbols imply minds that could store meaning outside the head, the root of art, identity markers and eventually writing. It moved the 'dawn of art' from Ice Age Europe to Africa.
How we know
Objects excavated in sealed layers and dated by luminescence, which measures when sand grains last saw sunlight. Findings were published in Science and Nature between 2002 and 2018.
Still debated
Whether the scratched lines carried meaning or were decoration is debated, as is whether these finds mark a sudden change or one step in a gradual build-up.
Connections (2)
▸Homo sapiens: modern humans made Earliest symbolic art (Blombos Cave)Mostly agreed
The connection
Modern humans in southern Africa were already thinking symbolically long before most of them left Africa. At Blombos they mixed ochre paint, engraved patterns and wore shell beads, behaviors once thought to have begun in Europe about 40,000 years ago.
When and how
Blombos Cave, southern Cape coast of South Africa, about 100,000–73,000 years ago; excavations led by Christopher Henshilwood since 1991.
How sure are we?
Modern human teeth found in the same layers tie the objects to Homo sapiens.
Debates and open questions
Whether this was a local spark or part of a long, Africa-wide build-up, shown by older shell beads in Morocco, is debated.
▸Earliest symbolic art (Blombos Cave) foreshadowed Ice Age cave art (Sulawesi, Chauvet, Lascaux)Mostly agreed
The connection
The abstract patterns and ochre use at Blombos came tens of thousands of years before painted animals appeared on cave walls in Indonesia and Europe. They suggest the capacity for art was present in Africa first and traveled with modern humans as they spread.
When and how
From South Africa about 75,000 years ago to Sulawesi about 51,000 years ago and France about 36,000 years ago.
How sure are we?
The dated sequence of finds and the shared use of red ochre. But it is an inference about shared ability, not a direct line of influence.
Debates and open questions
Whether figurative painting was invented once and carried along, or reinvented in different places, is unknown.