Oldest Prehistoric Mine in America Was Used for Extracting Pigments – RisePEI
In response to a brand new research printed within the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the oldest mine in America was used to excavate for ochre, the important pigment used to make paint.
The mine, known as the Powars II website by archaeologists, is within the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. There, Indigenous folks started quarrying for hematite (the iron oxide compound that produces the purple pigment we all know as ochre) some 12,840 years in the past. The mine was used on and off for an ensuing 1,000 years.
Indigenous peoples used antlers and animal bones to excavate for the hematite. The pigment, as soon as processed, could be utilized in a wide range of rituals, and traces of it may be present in historic graves, kill websites, and campsites.
This discovery has been a very long time coming.
“It’s gratifying that we have been lastly capable of affirm the importance of the Powars II website after a long time of labor by so many,” stated lead writer Spencer Pelton in a statement. Pelton talked about George Frison, who realized of the positioning within the Eighties and researched the mine till his dying in 2020. The work was carried on by Frison’s colleagues and college students.
The mine was of unimaginable significance to the societies of the time, because it was solely considered one of 5 ochre quarries in the entire Americas, and the one one in North America. As such, it was a key website for the individuals who as soon as inhabited the realm.
“Past its standing as a quarry, the Powars II artifact assemblage is itself one of many densest and most numerous of any to date found within the early Paleoindian file of the Americas,” Pelton stated in his assertion.
Powars II would be the topic of an ensuing research of the encircling space that can attempt to piece collectively the lives lived round this essential supply of pigment.
