Jewelry: As Old as Mankind
Everywhere in the world today, people make, buy, sell and wear jewelry. Some of the most valuable objects in the world are jewelry, including elaborate necklaces with giant diamonds or other precious stones balanced in settings of gold, platinum and other precious metals. At the same time, there is jewelry available at the dollar store, made of plastic and alluminium. We use adornments on our bodies to express our identities, our status, our personal fashion sense, and affiliation with different sub groups, and because we like to feel pretty.
Making and wearing jewelry is a very ancient thing. The earliest humans made and wore jewelry- and so did some of our non homo sapien ancestors. These eagle talon pendants were worn as jewelry by Neanderthals. They were found at the Neanderthal site of Krapina, Croatia, and the realization that they were pendants between 2013 and 2015 was instrumental in changing our perception of Neanderthals from mindless brutes to intelligent and creative beings. These Eagle talon pendants are dated to be 135,000 years old.
This stone bracelet was found in a site in the Altai Region of Siberia, amongst remains of another one our non human ancestors, the Denisovians. It is dated to about 40,000 years ago. This bracelet is an example of technological knowledge of craftsmanship that scholars did not previously know existed in the Paleolithic period.
Nassarious shell beads with holes in them were found in Blombos Cave, South Africa, and date to about 75,000 years ago. The holes in beads and their location in situ indicates that they were strung, and represent some of the earliest use of beads by anatomically modern humans.
Beaded headdresses have been found on the heads of bodies that were buried covered in ochre, and eating across their chests where they would have been laid along with the deceased. Jewelry making has both come a long way, and not changed much. I think we all know someone who has a seashell necklace.
One further implication of seashell beads is that they are found in great numbers very far from any body of water. This means that the shells must have been traded between different groups of people, or at the very least brought one one location to another. This hint of ancient trade routes and movement gives a glimpse of past human, and pre human, behaviors.
Beads and other jewelry are often found as grave goods. One very significant find was in Sunghir, Russia, about 200 km east of what is now Moscow. The grave of one adult male and another with two boys buried together head to head were absolutely full of grave goods, including thousands of ivory beads.
These beads and ochre are found on the Pelvic bones of a child.
The graves are about 34,000 years old and some of the most elaborate early Homo Sapien burials. The adult male pictures above had three thousand mammoth ivory beads, ivory arm bands, and pierced fox canines. You can see by looking at the photo how the jewelry was originally worn.
Sources:
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100362
https://www.ancientfacts.net/7-oldest-pieces-jewelry-world/
Dr. Lisa Maher's lectures.
https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/paleolithic-burial-sunghir/
Making and wearing jewelry is a very ancient thing. The earliest humans made and wore jewelry- and so did some of our non homo sapien ancestors. These eagle talon pendants were worn as jewelry by Neanderthals. They were found at the Neanderthal site of Krapina, Croatia, and the realization that they were pendants between 2013 and 2015 was instrumental in changing our perception of Neanderthals from mindless brutes to intelligent and creative beings. These Eagle talon pendants are dated to be 135,000 years old.
This stone bracelet was found in a site in the Altai Region of Siberia, amongst remains of another one our non human ancestors, the Denisovians. It is dated to about 40,000 years ago. This bracelet is an example of technological knowledge of craftsmanship that scholars did not previously know existed in the Paleolithic period.
Nassarious shell beads with holes in them were found in Blombos Cave, South Africa, and date to about 75,000 years ago. The holes in beads and their location in situ indicates that they were strung, and represent some of the earliest use of beads by anatomically modern humans.
Beaded headdresses have been found on the heads of bodies that were buried covered in ochre, and eating across their chests where they would have been laid along with the deceased. Jewelry making has both come a long way, and not changed much. I think we all know someone who has a seashell necklace.
One further implication of seashell beads is that they are found in great numbers very far from any body of water. This means that the shells must have been traded between different groups of people, or at the very least brought one one location to another. This hint of ancient trade routes and movement gives a glimpse of past human, and pre human, behaviors.
Beads and other jewelry are often found as grave goods. One very significant find was in Sunghir, Russia, about 200 km east of what is now Moscow. The grave of one adult male and another with two boys buried together head to head were absolutely full of grave goods, including thousands of ivory beads.
These beads and ochre are found on the Pelvic bones of a child.
The graves are about 34,000 years old and some of the most elaborate early Homo Sapien burials. The adult male pictures above had three thousand mammoth ivory beads, ivory arm bands, and pierced fox canines. You can see by looking at the photo how the jewelry was originally worn.
Sources:
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100362
https://www.ancientfacts.net/7-oldest-pieces-jewelry-world/
Dr. Lisa Maher's lectures.
https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/paleolithic-burial-sunghir/
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