Talk:Blombos Cave/Archive 1

Archive 1

News item spotted today

I notice this news item, probably deserves inclusion in this article: Oldest paint-making studio ever is discovered in cave —Martha (talk) 20:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

A quick google search gave a hundred or so reports here. EdwardLane (talk) 20:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Coordinate error

{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are needed for Blombos Cave (Google Earth Cords) 34°24'48.37"S 21°13'9.37"E

The cave is by the water, not on land. 23.49 Kilometers off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blombos_Cave Geo Hack Coordinates are way off (34°24′50.77″S 21°13′03.68″E) on Google Earth

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=27916

—Mrbunnylamakins (talk) 09:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

 Declined. The coordinates in the article are basically correct within 500-600m. The reason you were taken to the wrong place is that Google, especially Google Earth but occasionally Google Maps as well (so I've heard; I've not actually seen that happen with Google Maps, though it's a common problem with Google Earth), will take you to the wrong place even though provided with proper coordinates. It's a Google problem, not a Wikipedia problem. (If you'll look at the link text, you will see that it's Google, not Wikipedia that is generating the klm files for Google Earth and that Google is being provided with the correct coordinates.) Google has long ago been informed of the problem but has not fixed it (because they consider it to be a feature, not an error). By the way, if in GeoHack you'll use the "w/ meta data" link for Google Earth, rather than the "Open" link, it will (almost?) always work correctly. Acme Mapper and Wikimapia will always take you to the right location. - TransporterMan (TALK) 16:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

resource

Stone Age paint shop unearthed. Finds show how ancient people created and stored a red-colored liquid by Bruce Bower November 19th, 2011; Vol.180 #11 (p. 16), Science News (SN); excerpt ...

“Recovery of these tool kits shows that Homo sapiens at Blombos Cave 100,000 years ago had an elementary knowledge of chemistry and an ability to make long-term plans,” says archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Bergen in Norway. Abalone-shell paint holders found at the site represent the oldest known containers, he adds. ... Pieces of soft rock containing iron oxides, known as ochre, were rubbed on stone slabs to produce a red powder that was mixed in a pre-designated order with ochre chips, heated and crushed animal bone that acted as a binder, charcoal fragments, quartz grains and an unknown liquid, the team reports in the Oct. 14 Science.

"A nearby cave has yielded even older evidence of shellfish collecting at low tides, an activity that required knowledge of the moon’s phases (SN: 8/13/2011, p. 22)."

"Comparably sophisticated thinking characterized European Neandertals, who heated birch bark at high temperatures to make an adhesive for tool handles more than 100,000 years ago, holds Stanford University anthropologist Richard Klein."

See University of Connecticut, symbolic thinking, University of the Witwatersrand, Middle Stone Age#Complex cognition

99.181.140.213 (talk) 04:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)