Around 13,000 years ago, Paleoindian hunters were making red ochre from iron-rich hematite collected from a quarry in the western foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Red ochre had an important role in Paleoindian societies, and is associated with many campsites, kill sites, graves, caches—and notably, found in rock art. Worldwide, the historical record of red ochre mines extends back tens of thousands of years.
Ancient Moche artists created an exceptional level of ceramic art over 1,500 years ago when this culture prospered along the arid north coast of Peru. They produced realistic three-dimensional ceramic forms of people and animals, and they decorated vessels with exquisite fine-line drawings. Several aspects of Moche ceramics recently caught my interest, especially the realistic ceramic animals and the drawings of supernatural creatures.
Ancient people with hunting and gathering lifestyles were making fired clay pottery as far back as at least 20,000 years ago. This is surprising! Until recently, scholars believed that pottery appeared only when people adopted sedentary, farming lifestyles. Except that isn’t what actually happened.
Many ancient cultures revered red, the color of blood and historically associated with danger, courage, and sacrifice. Thousands of years ago in South America, ancient Andean artists happened upon an extremely vivid red dye: cochineal. The use of cochineal continues today, along with lots of controversy.
