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News Front Page Last Updated: Thursday, 22 June 2006, 20:24 GMT 21:24 UK
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Study reveals 'oldest jewellery'

Africa By Paul Rincon BBC NEWS: VIDEO A ND A UDIO
Science reporter, BBC News See the seashell jewellery
Americas
Asia-Pacific
The earliest known pieces of
Europe
jewellery made by modern FROM PROGRA MMES
Middle East humans have been identified
Leading Edge
South Asia by scientists.
Discoveries and hot
UK topics from the world
Business
The three shell beads are
of science
between 90,000 and 100,000
Health
years old, according to an SEE A LSO
Science &
international research team. C ave yields 'earliest jewellery'
Environment
The she lls we re probably parts of 15 Apr 04 | Science/Nature
Technology Two of the ancient beads come ne ck lace s or brace le ts (Image: C ave colours reveal mental leap
Entertainment from Skhul Cave on the slopes Marian Vanhaeren/Francesco d'Errico) 11 Dec 03 | Science/Nature
Also in the news of Mount Carmel in Israel. The other comes from the site of Standing out in the crowd
----------------- Oued Djebbana in Algeria. 16 Feb 02 | Boston 2002
Video and Audio
----------------- The finds, which pre-date other ancient examples by 25,000 RELA TED INTERNET LINKS
years, are described in the US journal Science. Science
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The BBC is not responsible for the
Have Your Say
The pea-sized items all have similar holes which would have content of external internet sites
In Pictures
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 In Pictures allowed them to be strung together into a necklace or TOP SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
C ountry Profiles bracelet, the researchers believe. STORIES
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All three shells come from the Night-sky image is biggest ever
It supports my thought
RELA TED BBC SITES same genus of marine mollusc Phantom Eye 'spy plane' unveiled
that there are no great
SPORT known as Nassarius; they were revolutions in the evolution Higgs discovery rumour is denied

WEATHER probably selected for their size of modern human behaviour | News feeds
and deliberately perforated - it is a gradual process
ON THIS DAY MOST POPULA R STORIES NOW
with a sharp flint tool. Alison Brooks, George
EDITORS' BLOG Washington University MO ST SHAR ED MOST REA D
They represent a remarkable
early expression of modern behaviour in the archaeological Nigeria targets last Boko Haram
bases
record, experts say.
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"The interesting thing about necklaces and this kind of migrants
behaviour is that it is symbolic. When we wear items like this, France arrest over 'churches'
we are sending a message," said co-author Professor Chris plot
Stringer of London's Natural History Museum. Dog 'drives tractor' on to
motorway
"The message may be that we are powerful, or wealthy, or
sexy, that we're part of a particular group, or to ward off evil. Saudi-led jets resume Yemen
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They're not just decorative; we think they had a social
meaning." Why tennis 'courtsiding' was my
dream job
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Chemical and elemental analysis of sediments stuck to one of
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the shells from Skhul showed that it came from ground layers
Syria
dated to 100,000 years ago.
In pictures: Stairway to Heaven
The style of tools at Oued Djebbana suggests the single NZ PM apologises for hair-
specimen from this open-air site might be up to 90,000 years pulling
old.
Most popular now, in detail
The authors' case for the shells
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 having been used as beads is
based on the remote location of
the sites where they were
found and the nature of the
perforations in them.

"The fact they are there at all

means they were transported
by people to [Skhul] cave;
these are seashells and the sea
was never that close to the
cave," Professor Stringer told
BBC Radio 4's Leading Edge
programme. Similarly, Oued
Djebbana is located about
200km (120 miles) from the
Flint tools lik e this one m ay have
Mediterranean Sea. be e n use d to pe rforate the she lls

"We're confident these were artificially made. The position of

the holes are exactly where people drill shells like this when
they are making necklaces."

The objects provide a clear example of the complex, symbolic

behaviour that would appear to set our species apart from the
animal world.

Modern thinking

Up until recently, examples of modern behaviour before 50,000

years ago had eluded researchers, even though humans with
modern-looking anatomy are known in the fossil record from
about 195,000 years ago onward.

This had led some researchers to propose that modern

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 anatomy and modern behaviour did not evolve in tandem.

Instead, they argued, a

fortuitous mutation in the
human brain may have triggered
an explosion in human creativity
50,000 years ago, leading to a
sudden appearance of personal
ornaments, skilfully-crafted art,
novel tools and weapons.

The discovery of 75,000-year-

old Nassarius shell beads at
Blombos Cave in South Africa
challenged this idea. These
beads even bore traces of red
ochre, used as a pigment. Now
the dates for beads from Skhul
and Oued Djebbana further
The pe ople at Sk hul transporte d the
weaken the "cultural explosion" she lls from far away
scenario, says Stringer.

Professor Alison Brooks, an expert in African archaeology at

George Washington University, US, said the study was "very
well researched".

"I am not surprised because I have long thought that the wide
variety of bead types that we see during the Upper
Palaeolithic in Europe had to have an antecedent. And this
tradition is a very logical antecedent," she told the BBC News
website.

"It supports my thought that there are no great revolutions in

the evolution of modern human behaviour - it is a gradual
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 process."

Cooking up

But the apparent antiquity of symbolic behaviour raises

questions about the time it took for modern humans to expand
into the rest of the world.

"There was a long period where modern humans survived in

the African world and into part of the Near East, but never
expanded into western Europe," Professor Ofer Bar-Yosef of
Harvard University, US, told the BBC News website.

"I think you have a 'cooking' or 'brewing' period. Otherwise

you have to explain, for example, why the industrial revolution
in England took place around 1850 and rapidly expanded
across the channel to Europe and then across the Atlantic to
America.

"In fact, we know from historical records that the

development of scientific methods and the development of
machinery took about 200 years before there was a
'breakout'."

The marine shells from Skhul are held by the Natural History
Museum in London, while the shell bead from Oued Djebbana is
held by the Museum of Man in Paris.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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