The Ember

Early people of our own species

By 100,000 years ago, our species was already about 200,000 years old. The people in this era are not the first humans or the inventors of fire. They lived on the coast of what is now South Africa, where caves and rock shelters preserve some of the richest evidence of early human life.

What the evidence shows

• Fossils from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, about 315,000 years old, document early stages of Homo sapiens.
• At Pinnacle Point, people were gathering shellfish, using pigment and making fine stone bladelets by about 164,000 years ago.
• At Blombos Cave, people mixed an ochre-rich paste and stored it in abalone shells about 100,000 years ago.

What is uncertain

• What the Blombos ochre mixture was used for is unknown. Decoration and skin protection are possibilities.

Sources

• Hublin et al. 2017. New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens. Nature. (opens the publisher’s site)

  What it supports: Fossils about 315,000 years old that document early stages of our species, with modern faces and older-looking braincases.

• Marean et al. 2007. Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature. (opens the publisher’s site)

  What it supports: Shellfish gathering, pigment use and bladelet tools at Pinnacle Point by about 164,000 years ago. It is not evidence for any particular family’s journey.

• Henshilwood et al. 2011. A 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science. (opens the publisher’s site)

  What it supports: An ochre-rich mixture made and stored in abalone shells about 100,000 years ago. What it was used for is unknown.

Summaries here are our own. Some publishers limit access to full papers; learning on this site is never paywalled.