Beads Were Earliest Form of Adornment

Shell beads recently unearthed in Morocco confirm early humans were consistently wearing and likely trading symbolic jewellery as early as 80,000 years ago.

These beads add to similar finds dating back as far as 110,000 years ago in Algeria, Morocco, Israel and South Africa, confirming beads as the oldest form of personal ornaments. The findings and conclusions were reported last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).

A team of researchers recovered 25 marine shell beads dating back to around 70,000 to 85,000 years ago from sites in Morocco, as part of the European Science Foundation EUROCORES programme 'Origin of Man, Language and Languages'. The shells have man-made holes through the centre and some show signs of pigment and prolonged wear, suggesting they were worn as jewellery.

"Either people went to sea and collected them, or more likely marine shell beads helped create and maintain exchange networks between coastal and inland peoples. This shows well-structured human culture that attributed meaning to these things," said Francesco d'Errico, lead author and director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

For scientists, beadworks are not simply decoration, they also represents a specific technology that conveys information through a shared coded language.

"The early invention of the personal ornament is one of the most fascinating cultural experiments in human history," d'Errico continued. "The common element among such ornaments is that they transmit meaning to others. They convey an image of you that is not just your biological self."

Click here for the complete press release.

Photo shows two of the ancient Moroccan shell beads.

Earliest Beads Unearthed in Moroccan Cave

Shell ornaments recently uncovered in a cave in Morocco are believed to be some of the world’s oldest beads. The fingernail-size Nassarius marine shells are perforated and some are covered in decorative red ochre.

Up until now, Blombos cave in South Africa has been leading the “bead race” with 41 Nassarius shell beads that can confidently be dated to 72,000 years ago. The 47 shells found in Morocco are likely at least 82,000 years old.

Archaeologists widely believe that humans in Europe first started fashioning purely symbolic objects about 40,000 years ago, but in Africa this latest evidence shows that humans were engaged in this activity at least 40,000 years before this.

Research team leader Professor Nick Barton of the University of Oxford, said: “These new finds are exciting because they show that bead manufacturing probably arose independently in different cultures and confirms a long suspected pattern that humans with modern symbolic behavior were present from a very early stage at both ends of the continent, probably as early as 110,000 years ago.”

Click here for the ScienceDaily article.