Physicochemical Analyses of Sediments from the Dune Layer of Blombos Cave

Overview/ Executive Summary of project
The production of painted images is generally considered a hallmark of cultural and cognitive modernity. Through its study, archaeologists attempt to explore how prehistoric populations shared social conventions, beliefs, and identities that were paramount in the creation and maintenance of their cultures. Conducting rock art research in sites located in coastal areas, however, is a challenging endeavour, mainly due to preservation problems allegedly related to the action of wind and marine aerosol. Despite the relevance of these agents, their impact on the taphonomy of prehistoric paintings has not been systematically studied, and the extent of their influence on the preservation of coastal rock art remains largely unknown.
In this context, a major challenge for archaeology is to determine whether the apparent absence of rock art paintings in coastal Middle Stone Age sites of southern Africa is more likely the product of human cultural choices, or the result of a taphonomic bias introduced by time-dependent destructive processes. To explore this fundamental research question, the MSCA TaphArt Project (funded by the European Union under de Grant Agreement ID 101109977) is developing accelerated ageing experiments to simulate and model the impact of wind erosion and marine aerosol degradation on rock art paintings produced in coastal sites with geological, topographic and archaeological characteristics similar to those of Blombos Cave. Within the scope of this study, a crucial step is to understand the specific characteristics of the sand and the salts that impacted Blombos Cave, a task that we aim to carry out through the physicochemical analyses of sediments from the Dune Layer.
Through this research, we will be generating unprecedented empirical data on the plausibility of rock art production in the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa, pushing the frontiers of archaeological knowledge on the forms of symbolic material culture used by Homo sapiens during this period and shedding light on crucial questions related to the origins of painted images.