Are 75,000-Year-Old Shell Beads the Earliest Forms of Symbolic Communication?

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The discovery of 75,000-year-old shell beads in Blombos Cave, Africa, represents some of the earliest known jewelry made by modern humans. These beads, believed to have been strung into necklaces or bracelets, indicate the use of symbolism, a key aspect of abstract thought in early human behavior. Professor Christopher Henshilwood highlights that this find suggests humans were capable of symbolic communication long before the advent of complex cultural expressions like cave art. The beads were dated using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), confirming their age and providing insights into the social and cultural practices of early humans. The beads' characteristics, such as size and wear patterns, differentiate them from later artifacts, suggesting they were intentionally crafted and used in specific ways. The discussion also touches on the spelling variations of "jewelry," reflecting cultural differences in language.
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75,000 year old "jewelry" beads

I never knew about the spelling of "jewellery". :rolleyes:

The oldest pieces of jewellery made by modern humans have emerged in Africa

Shell beads found in Blombos Cave on the southern tip of the continent are 75,000 years old, scientists say.

The pea-sized items all have similar holes which would have allowed them to be strung together into a necklace or bracelet, the researchers believe.

Christopher Henshilwood and his team have told Science magazine the find is probably one of the first examples of abstract thought seen in our ancestors.

"The beads carry a symbolic message. Symbolism is the basis for all that comes afterwards including cave art, personal ornaments and other sophisticated behaviours," Professor Henshilwood, of the University of Bergen, Norway, told BBC News Online.

"Even in today's world, where you're talking about computers - it's about storing information outside of the human brain. The evidence from Blombos Cave is that humans were using symbolism 75,000 years ago." [continued]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3629559.stm
 
Science news on Phys.org
Interestingly, this area of Africa is as far from the equator as Japan is.
 
very cool! i am a "jewellry" maker myself with thousands of beads in my collection...
 
hitssquad said:
Interestingly, this area of Africa is as far from the equator as Japan is.
Or Italy, or California.. that would be interesting because?..
 
Does anyone have an idea as to how they dated these beads?
 
Blombos Cave shells dated via OSL

They dated them with optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).



  • http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/304/5669/404.pdf we report on 41 perforated tick shell
    (Nassarius kraussianus) beads (Fig. 1) recovered
    from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) levels
    at Blombos Cave, a site located on the southern
    Cape shoreline of the Indian Ocean (4). Phase
    M1, in which 39 beads were found, was dated
    to 75.6 ± 3.4 ka, by optically stimulated
    luminescence (OSL) signals from both single
    aliquots and 4800 individual quartz grains.
    Thermoluminescence dates for five burnt lithic
    samples from the same phase provide a mean
    age of 77 ± 6 ka (5). Two beads that may be
    intrusive come from the top of the underlying,
    and still undated, phase M2.

    The MSA tick shells cannot derive from
    the cave walls, are too small to be leftovers
    from human food, and were not brought to
    the site accidentally by animals, because their
    only known predator is a gastropod (Natica
    tecta    ) that lives, like N. kraussianus, only in
    estuarine environments. If the tick shells had
    been accidentally brought to the cave site
    from 20-km-distant estuaries in wracks of
    dead Zostera capensis, a grass used for bedding
    by Later Stone Age (LSA) huntergatherers,
    all age classes would have been
    present, whereas Blombos Cave MSA beads
    include shells of adults only (fig. S1)...

    Small objects may easily be displaced
    through archaeological layers, and perforated
    tick shells were also recovered at Blombos
    Cave from the more recent LSA layers. OSL
    measurements on 1892 individual quartz
    grains from the aeolian sand layer that separates
    the LSA and MSA levels (6) indicates
    no contamination by grains of different ages,
    contraindicating downward percolation of
    younger objects. Also, MSA beads are significantly
    larger (P < 0.0001) than those from
    LSA levels; the most common MSA perforation
    type is present on < 1% of the LSA
    shells; LSA beads do not have the wear facets
    found on MSA specimens; and only 5% of
    MSA beads have broken lips, compared to
    52% of LSA beads, suggesting that the latter
    were strung in a different way. MSA beads
    are dark orange or black, whereas those from
    the LSA are white or pale beige (fig. S1).
    MSA shells were found in clusters of 2 to 17
    beads, with each group clustering in the same
    or neighboring 50-by-50-cm quadrates. Within
    a group, shells display a similar size,
    shade, use-wear pattern, and perforation size.
    Each cluster may represent beads coming
    from the same beadwork item, lost or disposed
    during a single event.


4. C. S. Henshilwood et al., J. Archaeol. Sci. 28, 4 21
(2001).
5. C. S. Henshilwood et al., Science 295, 1278 (2002).
6. Z. Jacobs, A. G. Wintle, G. A. T. Duller, J. Hum. Evol.
44, 613 (2003).[/color]
 

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Jewellery

Ivan Seeking said:
I never knew about the spelling of "jewellery".

Main Entry: jew·el·lery
Pronunciation: -lri

chiefly Britain
variant of JEWELRY
 
Blimey! :eek:

Those silly Brits. When are they going to learn English?
 
  • #10
Could be in the eye of the archaeologist beholder?
 
  • #11
Overdose said:
Check this out (also on the bbc web-site) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3197402.stm
is it just me or does that look like something out of babalon 5? (not that I've ever watched it *ahem)

They say it looks like an "expressive face", but the face looks like a mole's face to me. Then again, there are lots of stuff like this out there... "Hey! This onion ring looks like Jesus/Elvis/Lenin/Gorbachev/Superman"

I agree with the bottom of the article that its probably just a byproduct of the Earth's rock cycle.
 
  • #12
Ivan Seeking said:
Blimey! :eek:

Those silly Brits. When are they going to learn English?

And, believe me, the Brits say the same thing about Americans. My English teacher is a Brit, and she wouldn't let me spell color as color. It has to be colour. Of course, our country was once a British colony, so British spelling is still more prevalent, although the Internet is starting to change that. I personally have no qualms as to how words are spelled, as long as they're right in either American or British spelling.
 

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