Oldest known jewelry found in South Africa cave

[Ediacara]

Oldest known jewelry found in South Africa cave

The Associated Press
Published on: 04/15/04


National Science Foundation/AP
The 41 beads were made by boring holes
in the shells, each less than a half-inch
across.

WASHINGTON — About 75,000 years ago someone living in a cave overlooking the Indian Ocean bored holes in a set of shells and strung them as beads — the earliest known human jewelry.

The newly found beads are more than 30,000 years older than any other known human jewelry.

The discovery of the stone age beads in South Africa supports the theory that traits associated with modern people, such as using symbolic items, developed early, rather than thousands of years later after humans migrated to the Middle East and Europe.

The previously oldest known human ornaments are perforated teeth and eggshell beads from Bulgaria and Turkey, aged 41,000 to 43,000 years ago, and 40,000-year-old ostrich-shell beads from Kenya.

More at the Atlata Journal-Constitution

[Sub Atomic]

1. All lies!!!

Any gawd-fearing Xian knows the earth is only a couple of thousand years old.

"Finds" such as these are planted by gawd to test the faith of the chosen ones.

:eyes:

[xchrom]

2. obviously the work of a gay man

and you know who it was that strung a fur curtain up in front of the cave too, right? :party:

[peterh]

5. Coulda been a gay man….

But it was the straight man that bought it from him to give to his honey….even 75,000 years ago, men knew what the rules were….:evilgrin:


The gays were also resented back then because they controlled most of the money....

[mr_hat]

3. Added the archeologist, "And Za-Za has never looked better."

[KoKo]

4. I love jewelry, and "natural jewelry" is my most favorite. Glad to see

lots of folks liked looking "pretty" or "macho" with adornments. Much better than the T-Shirts and "plain stuff" I see most of us wearing these days.

Vanity, vanity...where has it gone....sigh.

[shanti]

6. they look like cowry shells

which i really love....they've never gone out of fashion, it appears!