* Marilynn Johnson is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. Her research sits at the intersection of meaning, intentions, archeology, language, and adornment. This post is an edited excerpt from her book Adorning Bodies: Meaning, Evolution, and Beauty in Humans and Animals (Bloomsbury 2022). It concerns the interpretation of red ochre adornments and what Marilynn calls the “imitation of natural meaning in prehistory.” She writes…
In interpreting archaeological evidence such as ochre and shell beads, some philosophical framework is needed. This is either recognized and made explicit by the authors, or implied by their interpretation of the evidence. No interpretation is done without some implicit or explicit theory about what the evidence means. Discussions of prehistoric bodily adornment as a system of communication thus explicitly or implicitly rely on philosophical machinery about how artifacts can be bearers of meaning.
In some discussions of bodily adornment a theory of communication is not explicitly detailed but is implied by (1) the sort of evidence that is taken to demonstrate symbolic behavior, and (2) the sorts of messages that are proposed as the communicated content. Within archaeology and anthropology more broadly the practice of drawing explicitly on semiotic theory is called “structuralism,” and is characterized by Margaret Conkey as “a body of ideas about how human culture and the human mind work” with “explicit origins in linguistics and the study of language.” She writes that within structuralist archaeology theorists assume that any object of interpretation “was generated from a set of underlying cultural premises that are structured like language” and thus we can use a linguistic lens to interpret everything from red ochre, to shell beads, to cave art.
Structuralism as applied by anthropologists and archaeologists draws on a dichotomy between opposites: day and night, masculine and feminine, light and dark, sun and moon, and so on to interpret archaeological artifacts and sites. This framework of binaries is limited but it is easy to see why it would appeal to theorists. In looking for an interpretive framework universality of meanings is a key that could unlock numerous interpretive possibilities, and if there is any plausible theory of meaning that is universal for all of human kind, perhaps it is these binaries.
One type of bodily adornment that has been interpreted by archaeologists using this structuralist framework is red ochre. Red ochre is a substance made of a red rock that is soft enough to be ground into a fine powder that is mixed with water to create a paste and is then used as a pigment and as a technical aid in tanning or hafting, as sunscreen, to keep off pests, etc. In their interpretation of the red ochre found at burial sites archaeologists Chris Knight, Camilla Power, and Ian Watts make use of this structuralist framework of opposites, which they present explicitly in their article “The Human Symbolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account” published in the Cambridge Archaeology Journal. In their theorizing they look to “the persistent mythico-ritual linkages between the moon, menstruation and hunting luck.” They propose that red ochre was used to simulate menstruation, which they take to be an indicator of “impending fertility.”
Red ochre applied to the skin
That is, on their view women would engage in the deceptive practice of smearing their inner thighs with red ochre to select for those men who are “prepared to wait around.” Their theory is that this practice would lead to fathers who will eventually be better providers for offspring, because the capacity to wait is a sign of a personality trait that would be beneficial to raising offspring. Knight, Power, and Watts argue that this practice of using red ochre to simulate menstruation began around 105 kya and again resurged around 40 kya in the transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic. Their argument for this is that during a time they date as roughly 105 kya “copious amounts of [red] ochre are ubiquitous in cave/rockshelter sites” and that the data “pass the 95 per cent confidence limit that they [the red ochre findings] are not attributable to sampling variation alone.” Knight et al. spend some time rejecting a functional explanation of the ochre, concluding that “more utilitarian uses of iron oxide were secondary to ritual body painting.” In summary, their position is that the presence of red ochre— which does not appear to be random or to have served a primarily functional purpose— was used by women to fake menstruation, thus providing an advantage to their offspring, a practice that began 105,000 years ago and again resurfaced around 40,000 years ago.
Now, there is reason to be skeptical of the Knight et al. interpretation of the red ochre. There are many points in their argument to which one could object. Would menstruation really be viewed in this way? Would the women choose to fake menstruation in this way? Would the men really be fooled? Would this really occur across cultures and time in this way? Have all other alternative explanations been sufficiently ruled out? It would be reasonable to argue that the answer to all of these questions is “no.” And if their argument is right, why, then, wouldn’t this practice continue today?
But before we reject the Knight et al. proposal outright let us consider it a bit more. First, it is important to note that if this use of red ochre did occur, then this red ochre was used intentionally, deceptively, and had meaning— but that intention was not intended to be recognized by the interpreter. In other words, real menstrual blood had what philosopher of language Paul Grice would call natural meaning. When it is fake menstrual blood, successfully simulated by red ochre, (assuming for the sake of argument that this took place) the inference on the part of the viewer would be the same as if it were real blood. But, in the case of ochre menstrual simulation it would not be factive. This is because a woman could apply red ochre to her thighs when she is not actually menstruating, and could not actually soon carry a child.
If pigments, such as red ochre, were used to simulate natural features that are themselves taken to have natural meaning, then we have an instance of what I call imitation of natural meaning in prehistory. Imitation of natural meaning is when bodily adornment is used to successfully simulate natural features that are themselves taken to have meaning— in this case that the woman is menstruating. Now, as I have noted here, Knight et al. have not provided sufficient evidence that this is indeed what was going on at this site. However, it is an important case because it turns our attention to the possibility of this type of meaning with bodily adornment in prehistory— and of the importance of philosophical theories and analysis in such discussions of meaning.
Marilynn’s book, Adorning Bodies: Meaning, Evolution, and Beauty in Humans and Animals, is available through Bloomsbury
