Neanderthals crafted red and yellow "crayons" tens of thousands of years ago, using different techniques to sharpen the instruments' edges into a perfect point, a new study finds.
These Neanderthals, who lived in what is now Crimea, sculpted their crayons out of ocher (also spelled ochre), an iron-containing mineral that can be used as pigment. In the new study, the researchers identified three ocher crayons dating up to 100,000 years ago that appeared to have had "curated use," including one with a sharpened tip.
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