ESTABLISHING A FUNCTIONAL USE FOR THE MIDDLE STONE AGE (MSA) ENGRAVED BLOMBOS OCHRE STONE THROUGH IMAGE-BASED VECTORIZATION, USE-WEAR CONSTRAINTS, AND EXPERIMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION

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This Computer Applications in Archaeology (CAA) 2026 conference case study establishes that Middle Stone Age occupants of Blombos cave, South Africa, engraved a particular ordered pattern into ochre stone for it to function like a braille script to their fingers through touch (Malafouris, 2021), indicating the precise string weaving order required, to make a net, with net weights (Stein and Pacheco, 2025).

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Supplementary Information from Palaeoproteomic investigation of archaeological sediments associated with ochre use in the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa

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