According to a new study, nearly 49,000 years ago, people from South Africa made use of milk- and ochre-based paint in order to decorate their bodies, wooden slabs and ornament stone. According to Paola Villa, the study's lead author and curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, it is for the first time that a paint made of ochre and milk has been found in South Africa.

Science Daily reported that scientists were aware that ochre was used at least 250,000 years ago in Africa and Europe. As per Villa, milk of slaughtered lactating animals from the bovid family, such as buffalo, kudu, eland and impala, was used in the paint, which served the purpose of a chemical binding agent.

According to Villa, “This surprising find establishes the use of milk with ochre well before the introduction of domestic cattle in South Africa. Obtaining milk from a lactating wild bovid also suggests that the people may have attributed a special significance and value to that product”.

As per reports, the powdered paint was discovered on a small stone flake in Sibudu Cave. Anatomically modern humans used to live in the coastal province in the Middle Stone Age approximately 77,000 years to 38,000 years ago.

According to the lead researcher, it was nearly 1,000 to 2,000 years ago when cattle became domesticated animals in South Africa. She said that during that time, South African bovids were easily hunted as a result of their behavior of going away from their herd after giving birth.