A preliminary study of ochres and pigmentaceous materials from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: towards an understanding of San pigment and paint use

Abstract

Most research into San rock art has concentrated on iconography and cultural meanings, with a growing interest in recent years in direct dating using archaeometric techniques. There has been relatively little archaeometric study of the ochres and pigments used in the paintings themselves, or investigation into their origins. This paper reports on the results of an initial study to characterise a range of ochres and pigments that cover a wide geographic area in KwaZulu-Natal and which are temporally separate (from 1700 AD to 9180 BP); some from well-described archaeological sites, others from the snuffbox shale. Physical (colour, streak, hardness), chemical (organic carbon; extractable iron, aluminium, and manganese; total major and trace elements), and mineralogical (transmission and scanning electron microscopy with associated elemental analysis; X-ray diffraction) analyses were carried out. The majority of the samples had red hues with hematite dominant; goethite predominated in two samples. Other minerals commonly present were kaolin, feldspars, quartz, and mica. The samples with the highest iron contents (about 60% Fe) were those from the Iron Age sites, although one sample of ochre from Maqonqo Shelter had a comparable Fe content.