The black pigment used in the small cave of Les Dogues (Ares del Maestrat) during the Neolithic contains charcoal. It has been discovered from the fragmented plant cells from conifer and angiosperm. This is the main conclusion of a study published in the magazine ‘PLOS ONE’ by the UV professors Clodoaldo Roldán, Ernestina Badal, Sonia Murcia and Valentín Villaverde, and by Esther López (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de França-CNRS).
Thanks to a paleoethnobotanical analysis which has never been used before, it has been possible to identify the plant cells from angiosperm and conifer and to detail the process through which they transformed these substances to use them as pigments. These cells were very fragmented and obstructed due to an agglutinative substance. This shows that there was an intense mechanical process of transformation through which they produced a fine powder.
Then, they mixed it with a substance which cannot be identified, although it is believed that it was animal or vegetal fat. They obtained an enough jellied mix in order to bind the pigment together. The article underlines that, due to the deterioration condition of the pigment, it is impossible to identify the exact origin of the agglutinating substance. Maybe that is the reason why the previous researches have been far from discovering or explaining the existence of an agglutinating substance.
The research provides a new experimental methodology to the sector, the chaîne opératoire. Its purpose is not only to determine the composition of the pigment, but also to discover the technical process of elaboration of the paintings. In that way, the researcher team has been able to reproduce the possible variety of pigments that they used by using charcoal and the tools that the men and women of the Neolithic had, for instance, a mace and a stone mortar.
Even though the nature of the agglutinating substance has not been confirmed, the possible recipes of the Neolithic paintings have been recreated. In Les Dogues shelter, where there are two different graphic styles, which show a complete and imprecise period of time, of transmission and reproduction of the elaboration techniques of the pigments.
The purpose of recreating this techniques consists in documenting the manufacture process to get closer to the transmission of knowledges in the Neolithic societies. Until recently, the black pigments analysed in the area of Valltorta show that they were elaborated with manganese. However, in the area of Gassulla, place to which the shelter of Les Dogues belongs, all the black pigments analysed by the research team were made with charcoal. This discovering has been made possible by the combination of the elemental analysis through the spectroscopy EDXRF which have rejected the presence of manganese and the Raman microscopic analysis which has confirmed the presence of charcoal.
It is explained in the article ‘Identification of plant cells in black pigments of prehistoric Spanish Levantine rock art by means of a multi-analytical approach. A new method for social identity materialization using chaîne opératoire’, published in the magazine PLOS ONE by Clodoaldo Roldán, Ernestina Badal, Sonia Murcia and Valentín Villaverde, professors at the Universitat de València, and by Esther López, from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France. It is a research conducted in the framework of the European Union «NEOSOCWESTMED» project which is financed with the Marie Curie Actions funds.
The cells which have been identified come from conifers and angiosperms but their characteristics are common to the typical vegetation of the eastern coast Neolithic such as the strawberry tree, the mastic, the walnut tree, the Mediterranean buckthorn, the plum tree or the cherry tree. But it is difficult to specify the varieties. In the article, it is explained in detail the experimental production of the pigments which result from the different combinations of the charcoal which has been obtained through the vegetation and the different agglutinating substances. In that way, the aim has been to revive the technique to confirm the methodology used in the Neolithic and the contrasted results offer similar results of pigmentation.
Mineral raw materials
The agglutinating substances which were used ‘are difficult to detect with the techniques that have been used. That’s why it was thought that the pigments of the eastern cost were elaborated by a simple mixture of mineral raw materials, such as the hematita or the manganese, in water’ has highlighted the team. Furthermore, they add ‘it has been long time since the agglutinating substance are being analysed with different techniques, chromatography in particular. It has not been possible to identify them not because of the capacity of these techniques but because the organic substance is too deteriorated’. All of them agree in highlighting that the multidisciplinary approach applied to this research -the physicochemical analysis, the paleoethnobotany and the experimental archaeology- is the key element that has allowed to overcome these barriers.
Article:
López-Montalvo E, Roldán C, Badal E, Murcia-Mascarós S, Villaverde V (2017) «Identification of plant cells in black pigments of prehistoric Spanish Levantine rock art by means of a multi-analytical approach. A new method for social identity materialization using chaîne opératoire». PLOS ONE 12(2): e0172225. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172225
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172225
Last update: 16 de march de 2017 08:00.
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