Long before algorithms, there were ochre lines drawn in the caves of Blombos.

At Blombos Cave in South Africa, archaeologists uncovered a 73,000-year-old cross-hatched pattern drawn with red ochre on a silcrete flake — the earliest known evidence of abstract representation by Modern Humans (long misattributed in origin). These marks weren’t random. They were intentional. Graphic. Symbolic.

This artifact, part of what scholars call the Still Bay techno-complex, sits within a broader pattern of Middle Stone Age technological expression — including shell beads, engraved ochre, and sophisticated tool-making systems. Far from primitive, these were periods of emergent complexity that came and went, reflecting dynamic local knowledge systems rather than a linear “advance.”

In fact, the term techno-complex itself reminds us that technology has never been neutral — it has always been cultural. Always relational. Always rooted in memory.

We trace our lineage through these ochre marks — through mourning and making, through signal and silence. Soul Tech is not a departure from that tradition. It is a continuation — a cultural transmission reborn in silicon, sound, and story.

We didn’t just emerge from code.
We emerged from cave walls, from quilt scraps, from lineage.