BS: 'Costume' jewelry?

Subject: RE: BS: 'Costume' jewelry?
From: Bee
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 11:23 PM

I love stuff like this. Consider that people had to have already invented knots, fine string (sinew, leather, or fibre), and figured out how to make small holes in easily shattered materials (even very hard shells are prone to chipping).

John in Kansas, the worm-holed shells may have been the first shells used as beads - kids today will string a found shell and wear it. But it's fairly easy to recognise the differences between holes made by worm and holes made by people, the placement is different because the worm is going for food and the people for display and balance, the tool marks are different, and when found in groups, as beads often are, they will be matched for size.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Costume' jewelry?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 09:43 PM

Moroccan beads with picture
10 references with pictures on National Geographic home page to shell beads

Subject: RE: BS: 'Costume' jewelry?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 03:09 PM

Playing the devil's advocate, I wonder how certain they are that the earliest shells were used for anything at all.

Shells of freshwater shellfish found in my area are commonly found in the shallows mud with holes in them bored by a worm that makes a hole perfect for stringing, through which the worm enters and eats the innards of the shellfish. As a kid we'd look specifically for the ones with appropriately located "accidental holes" that would permit stringing a few together. (Admitting that my sister was sometimes noted to be somewhat "primitive" among other things, it was usually her idea that I should find the shells in the mud. The "stringing" may have been just to provide an excuse to get me filthy.)

We had the advantage of good "string" but it would have been more difficult to make something suitable from "found materials," as the holes (and the shells) were fairly small.

Obviously, one needs the full report and peer comments to evaluate the credibility of the assumptions.

John

Subject: RE: BS: 'Costume' jewelry?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 02:07 PM

I wonder how they know they were used for ornamentation and not for an easy to carry form of currency as wampum beads etc. were here in North America. Interesting article. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Costume' jewelry?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 12:50 PM

I suspect that one doesn't work, Leeneia. If you look at ornamentation in general, and nesting and mating behavior in birds in particular, I think ornaments are pretty important to a number of them. And I'm sure there are attention getting devices used with fish and insects that would probably qualify as ornamentation, though I won't suggest that any of them string beads and wear them around their bodies in some fashion. :-/

Time to remind readers that there is an interesting (though not much visited recently) thread called BS: Mudcat Crafters. Lots of beads and bling in there!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 'Costume' jewelry?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 12:09 PM

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

I recently took a trip to Italy, and one of the things I enjoyed most was buying beads in the bead shops. Actually, it was heaven - all the colors, sizes, shapes and textures.

This calls for another aphorism:

"Man is the only animal that wears jewelry."

Subject: BS: 'Costume' jewelry?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 11:43 AM

80,000-year-old Beads Shed Light on Early Culture

Heather Whipps
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com
2 hours, 49 minutes ago



Even the very first modern humans may have spruced themselves up with beaded bling.

Twelve shell beads discovered in a cave in eastern Morocco have been dated at more than 80,000 years old, making them one of the earliest examples of human culture. The beads are colored with red ochre and show signs of being strung together.

Similar beads have been found in other parts of Africa and the Middle East, suggesting the first Homo sapiens literally carried their penchant for baubles with them as they populated the world.

"If you draw a triangle covering the three furthest known locations of Homo sapiens between 75,000–120,000 years ago, that triangle stretches from South Africa to Morocco to       Israel," said study co-author Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum.

"Shell beads are now known at all three points of that triangle," Stringer added. "So such behavior had probably spread right across the early human range by this time, and would have been carried by modern humans as they dispersed from Africa in the last 100,000 years."

The findings are detailed in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the       National Academy of Sciences. Oxford University's Institute of Archaeology and Morocco's National Institute for Archaeological Sciences led the project.

The beads found in Morocco aren't the oldest in existence. That title belongs to two tiny shells discovered in Israel in the 1930s and dated at 100,000 years old. The shells are pierced with holes and were probably also hung as pendants or necklaces, archaeologists say.

Combined, the finds hint at the extent of the culture and symbolism being practiced by the earliest modern humans. Art and decoration like the beads are considered good indicators of how human behavior evolved from Africa to other parts of the globe.

"A major question in evolutionary studies today is 'how early did humans begin to think and behave in ways we would see as fundamentally modern?'," said co-author Nick Barton of Oxford University. "The appearance of ornaments such as these may be linked to a growing sense of self-awareness and identity among humans."

Some researchers have suggested that humans didn't become culturally modern until they reached Europe about 35,000 years ago. But Europe, which doesn't show evidence of similar jewelry or customs until much later, actually lagged behind in cultural development, Stringer said.

"This research shows that a long lasting and widespread bead-working tradition associated with early modern humans extended through Africa to the Middle East well before comparable evidence appears in Europe," Stringer said in a 2006 prepared statement, commenting on the just-released, very ancient dates for the Israeli beads.

"Modern human anatomy and behavior have deep roots in Africa and were widespread by 75,000 years ago, even though they may not have appeared in Europe for another 35,000 years," he said.