“Red Ochre” Use by Early Neandertals

The use of manganese and iron-oxides by late Neandertals is well-documented in Europe, especially for the period 60-40,000 years ago. Such finds have often been interpreted as pigments even though their exact function is largely unknown. Here we report on significantly older iron-oxide finds which constitute the earliest documented use of red ochre by Neandertals. It concerns small concentrates of red material, retrieved during excavations at Maastricht-Belvédère (The Netherlands). These excavations exposed a series of wellpreserved flint artifact (and occasionally: bone) scatters, formed in a river valley setting during a late Middle Pleistocene full-interglacial period. Samples of the reddish material were submitted to various forms of analyses for a study of their physical properties. All applied methods show that the red material was hematite. This is a non-local material, which was imported to the site, possibly over dozens of kilometers. The identification of the MaastrichtBelvédère finds as hematite pushes the use of red ochre by (early) Neandertals significantly back in time, to minimally 200,000 to 250,000 years ago; i.e. to the same time range as the early ochre use in the African record, created by Middle Pleistocene ancestors of modern humans.