Christian Science Monitor Service By PETER N. SPOTTS, Christian Science Monitor

PHOENIX, Ariz. (November 8, 2001 1:04 p.m. EST) - Ancient bone tools and spear
points found in cliff-side caves along South Africa's coast may turn back the clock on the emergence of modern human behavior.

In research released here this week, an international team of archaeologists
and anthropologists exploring a site called the Blombos Cave described finding
tools and large amounts of ochre encased in sandy deposits at least 70,000
years old. Ochre is a mineral widely used as a pigment to adorn bodies and
clothing.

An ability to craft and in some cases polish "formal" tools, and the use of symbols, implied by the presence of ochre, are among the behaviors that separate humans from their primate relatives, notes Curtis Marean, an Arizona State University anthropologist and a member of the team that made the discovery.

If the artifacts themselves match the age of the deposits that harbored them, as expected, it could begin to shift the center of gravity for studying the evolution of human behavior from Europe to Africa.

Until now, sites on the European continent dating back some 40,000 years have
set the benchmark for tracking the evolution of "behavioral modernity" in humans, who are thought to have expanded out of Africa some 50,000 years ago.

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