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from the well-Trog,-how-do-you-like-my-latest-faux-tattoo dept. [article] From Africa, evidence is arising that colours were being used in a symbolic way perhaps 200,000 years ago, a UK scientist working in the area claims. Lawrence Barham has been examining tools and other artefacts left by ancient humans at a site in Zambia. The range of mineral pigments found there suggests the use of paint, he says, perhaps to mark the body. If so, it would slide back the earliest known instance of abstract thinking by at least 100,000 years. The ability to let one thing conceptually represent another was a huge leap in human evolution. Such mental activity would eventually permit the development of complex language and maths. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/5329486.stm < | >
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Colourful beginning for humanity
