Stone Age people found, combined and used substances for social and artistic purposes much earlier than thought, new archaeological findings indicate.

This is the conclusion of researchers who discovered pieces of ochre, grinding bowls, shells as containers, as well as bone and charcoal mix believed to be around 100,000 years old in the Blombos Cave in South Africa.

Other finds include sharp stone tools, as well as evidence of fishing.

According to lead researcher Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Bergen in Norway, the latest find represents an important benchmark in the evolution of complex human mental processes.

Two separate tool kits for working ochre were found at the site. These could have been used for painting, decoration or skin protection, according to the researchers.

Henshilwood, who is also affiliated with the South Africa's University of Witwatersrand, said that researchers believe the ochre was rubbed on rock to make a fine red powder and mixed with crushed bone, charcoal, stone chips and liquid. The mixture was then put into abalone shells and stirred with a bone.

"The ochre may have been applied with symbolic intent as decoration on middle Stone Age man's bodies and clothes," Henshilwood wrote in the Science journal.