7 October 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Anthropologists say humans have been using personal ornaments to communicate about themselves without the fuss of conversation – for millennia

Anthropologists believe that for millennia, individuals have used personal decorations to communicate about themselves without the hassle of dialogue.

They had interpreted beads and other personal ornaments made from seashells as the most common and earliest material manifestations of symbolic behavior.

According to anthropologists, humans have been doing this for millennia, finding methods to communicate about themselves without the hassle of talking.

Shell beads discovered in a cave in western Morocco and dated between 142,000 and 150,000 years old show that this behavior may date back far more than previously believed. The discovery, which was published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday, was found by a team of archaeologists led by Steven L. Kuhn, an anthropology professor at the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

The beads, Kuhn and his colleagues say, are the earliest known evidence of a widespread form of nonverbal human communication, and they shed new light on how humans’ cognitive abilities and social interactions evolved.



📣 Our WhatsApp channel is now LIVE! Stay up-to-date with the latest news and updates, just click here to follow us on WhatsApp and never miss a thing!!



beads
Photo: A. Bouzouggar, INSAP, Morocco

“They were probably part of the way people expressed their identity with their clothing,” Kuhn said. “They’re the tip of the iceberg for that kind of human trait. They show that it was present even hundreds of thousands of years ago, and that humans were interested in communicating to bigger groups of people than their immediate friends and family.”

Kuhn and an international team of archaeologists recovered the 33 beads between 2014 and 2018 near the mouth of Bizmoune Cave, about 10 miles inland from Essaouira, a city on Morocco’s Atlantic coast.

Kuhn co-directs archaeological research at Bizmoune Cave with Abdeljalil Bouzouggar, a professor at the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage in Rabat, Morocco, and Phillipe Fernandez, from the University Aix-Marseille in France, who are also authors on the study. El Mehdi Sehasseh, a graduate student at the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage, who did the detailed study of the beads, is the study’s lead author.

The beads uncovered by Kuhn and his collaborators were made from sea snail shells, and each measure roughly half an inch long. Holes in the center of the beads, as well as other markings from wear and tear, indicating that they were hung on strings or from clothing, Kuhn said.

The beads are like many others found at sites throughout northern and southern Africa, but previous examples date back to no older than 130,000 years. Ancient beads from North Africa are associated with the Aterian, a Middle Stone Age culture known for its distinctive stemmed spear points, whose people hunted gazelles, wildebeest, warthogs, and rhinoceros, among other animals.

The beads serve as potential clues for anthropologists studying the evolution of human cognition and communication. Researchers have long been interested in when language appeared. But there was no material record of language until just a few thousand years ago when humans began writing things down.

The beads, Kuhn said, are essentially a fossilized form of basic communication.

“We don’t know what they meant, but they’re clearly symbolic objects that were deployed in a way that other people could see them,” he said.

The beads are also notable for their lasting form. Rather than painting their bodies or faces with ochre or charcoal, as many people did, the beads’ makers made something more permanent, Kuhn said, suggesting the message they intended to convey was a lasting and important one.

In many ways, the beads raise more questions than they answer. Kuhn said he and his colleagues are now interested in learning why the Aterian people felt the need to make the beads when they did. They’re exploring several possible explanations. One, Kuhn said, involves a growing population; as more people began occupying North Africa, they may have needed ways to identify themselves.

It is also possible that people in North Africa started using the method of communication at a time when the climate was cold and dry. They may have developed clans or other allegiances to protect limited resources, then perhaps used the beads to express their ethnicity or other identities to show they belonged in a certain area, Kuhn said.

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

Related Articles

Ancient Rituals and ‘Devil’s Money’: Elite Pagans’ Medieval Cult Site Unearthed at Hezingen

15 February 2025

15 February 2025

Researchers in the eastern Netherlands have uncovered a medieval cult site featuring structural remains and a hoard of gold and...

Ancient Ruins Hidden Under Thessaloniki Metro Revealed

15 January 2023

15 January 2023

The finds unearthed during the construction of local metro facilities in Thessaloniki, a Greek port city on the Thermaic Gulf...

2,000-Year-Old Unique Composite Fish Scaled Armor Found in Ancient Tomb

20 December 2024

20 December 2024

Chinese researchers have recently found fish-scaled armor in the tomb of Liu He, Marquis of Haihun from the Western Han...

From ‘Empty Lands’ to Rich History: Discovery of the First Bronze Age Settlement in Maghreb, Dating to 2,000 BC

15 March 2025

15 March 2025

Researchers at the University of Barcelona have made a remarkable discovery: the first Bronze Age settlement in the Maghreb region...

A unique tomb decorated with amber was discovered near Petrozavodsk

26 August 2021

26 August 2021

According to a press release from the Petrozavodsk State University a unique tomb was discovered on the western shore of...

Turkey discovers 11 new major hills near famed Gobeklitepe “Potbelly Hill”

28 June 2021

28 June 2021

Turkey reported on Sunday the discovery of 11 new hills in the vicinity of the renowned ancient site of Gobeklitepe...

Ötzi the Iceman Had Dark Skin, Bald Head and Anatolian Ancestry -New study rewrites ancient history

17 August 2023

17 August 2023

New DNA analysis by German researchers shows that the famous glacier mummy Ötzi may have had dark skin, dark eyes,...

New Type of Amphora Found in 5th-Century Roman Shipwreck

28 April 2024

28 April 2024

The first in-depth analysis of the cargo of a 4th-century Roman shipwreck found off the coast of Mallorca in 2019...

Archaeologists discover complete armored 14th-century gauntlet in Switzerland

18 January 2024

18 January 2024

Excavations in Kyburg in the canton of Zürich, northeastern Switzerland have discovered a 14th-century fully preserved gauntlet of armor in...

Computational Analysis Points to a Non-Traditional Garden of Eden Location – Beneath the Pyramids?

30 April 2025

30 April 2025

A radical new theory proposed by a computer engineer suggests that the biblical Garden of Eden may not be in...

Roman girl adorned with 1800-year-old jewelry found in a lead coffin on Mount Scopus

9 April 2023

9 April 2023

“After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the exodus of the Jewish population, late Roman Jerusalem—renamed Aelia Capitolina—had a...

Ancient ‘Church’ in Spain May Actually Be a Roman-Era Synagogue, Archaeologists Say

2 August 2025

2 August 2025

Archaeologists have found menorah artifacts and Hebrew inscriptions that may prove a 4th-century church was actually a Roman-era synagogue. Archaeologists...

Karahantepe will shed light on the mysteries of the Prehistoric period

7 October 2021

7 October 2021

Karahantepe’s ancient site, which is home to Neolithic-era T-shaped obelisks similar to the ones in the world-famous Göbeklitepe, will reveal...

In Parion, one of the most important cities of the Troas region, 2,000-year-old mother-child graves were unearthed

1 November 2022

1 November 2022

Archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Parion, the most important harbor city in the Hellenistic era, have uncovered  2,000-year-old...

In Fraueninsel in Lake Chiemsee: Romanesque a central building hidden underground for 1,000 years discovered

25 February 2024

25 February 2024

On Fraueninsel, an island in Germany’s Lake Chiemsee, archaeologists discovered a cult site that may have been slumbering underground for...