2006/06/22 by Marian Vanhaeren, Francesco d’Errico, Chris Stringer +3 · 459 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Maritime and Coastal Archaeology #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Bead #Shell (structure) #Middle Paleolithic #Archaeology #Natural (archaeology) #Sediment #Geology #Geography #Paleontology #Pleistocene
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1128139
published in Science 312(5781), 1785-1788 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
openalex publication_date 2006/06/22 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Perforated marine gastropod shells at the western Asian site of Skhul and the North African site of Oued Djebbana indicate the early use of beads by modern humans in these regions. The remoteness of these sites from the seashore and a comparison of the shells to natural shell assemblages indicate deliberate selection and transport by humans for symbolic use. Elemental and chemical analyses of sediment matrix adhered to one Nassarius gibbosulus from Skhul indicate that the shell bead comes from a layer containing 10 human fossils and dating to 100,000 to 135,000 years ago, about 25,000 years earlier than previous evidence for personal decoration by modern humans in South Africa.