In Africa, this includes two deliberately engraved ochre pieces from c. 75,000 year old levels at Blombos Cave, Western Cape, South Africa and the greater than 55,000 year old incised ostrich egg shell …

Blombos Cave, southern Cape, South Africa: preliminary report on the 1992-1999 excavations of the Middle Stone Age levels. 28: Journal ofArchaeological Science 421-448.

Since Blombos Cave does not contain any Howiesons Poort material, this techno-tradition will not be discussed further in subsequent sections of this chapter.

The site of Blombos Cave (BBC) is well known for archaeological remains that have advanced our un-derstanding of the development of modern human behaviour during the Middle Stone Age (MSA).

During the excavation at Blombos, the charcoal in the 120 sediment was moist, giving it a buttery texture that smeared when the trowel scrapped 121 across it. The charcoal fragments in this moist condition …

Here we report a cross-hatched pattern drawn with an ochre crayon on a ground silcrete flake recovered from approximately 73,000-year-old Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa.

Blombos Cave is the site of an ongoing excavation by teams from the University of Bergen (Norway) and the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) that begun in 1991.