Multimedia Gallery
Pigment-stained Marine Shell (Image 1)
A pigment-stained and perforated marine scallop shell from Cueva Antón, a Neanderthal-associated site in the Murcia province of south-east Spain. Analysis of this and other shells found at the site, discovered by João Zilhao, professor of paleolithic archaeology at the University of Bristol, and colleagues, found they were most certainly used as neck pendants. The shells date from the Middle Paleolithic level l-k, ~37,500 years old.
The practice of body ornamentation is widely accepted by archaeologists as conclusive evidence for modern behavior and symbolic thinking among early modern humans, but had not been recognized in Neanderthals until this discovery. (Date of Image: 2009) [See related image Here.]
Credit: João Zilhao, University of Bristol
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