A small object from a Neolithic site in Serbia, long classified as an animal-tooth bead, has turned out to be something far more unusual: a carefully modified human canine that was likely worn as a pendant more than 6,500 years ago.
The tooth came from Jablanica, a Late Neolithic settlement south of Belgrade associated with the Vinča culture. Researchers Nemanja Marković of the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade and Ana Maričić of the Belgrade City Museum identified it as a human upper right canine after reexamining an object that had remained in the Museum of Mladenovac collection for nearly two decades.
Their study, published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, found clear evidence that the tooth had been deliberately shaped, drilled and suspended. More unusually, the researchers argue that it was probably obtained after its owner had died and the body had already become skeletonized.
A Human Tooth Hidden in a Museum Collection
The object was originally recovered during a surface survey at Jablanica rather than during a controlled excavation. Agricultural activity had damaged the tooth, splitting part of its crown, and it was subsequently catalogued as the remains of a bead thought to have been made from an animal tooth.
A closer examination changed that identification.
Macroscopic and radiographic analysis showed that the object was a human maxillary canine measuring about 23 millimeters long. Researchers also identified deliberate modifications that would be difficult to explain as accidental damage.
The apex of the root had been shaped, while a mesial-to-distal hole had been drilled through the root. Microscopic examination of the perforation revealed wear produced by repeated friction.
Those traces are particularly important because they indicate that something had repeatedly moved against the inside of the hole. The researchers interpret this as evidence that the tooth had been suspended on an organic fiber or cord and worn as a personal ornament.
In other words, the hole was not simply drilled into the tooth and abandoned. The pendant appears to have been used for an extended period.
The precision of the modification also suggests that its maker understood how to work a difficult material without breaking it. Marković described the microscopic traces as evidence of considerable skill rather than an improvised attempt to turn a tooth into jewelry.
The Tooth Was Probably Taken From the Dead
The individual cannot be identified, but the tooth’s wear and root condition offer clues about age and how it was removed.
Wear on its crown suggests that it belonged to an adult, possibly a middle-aged individual. More revealing is the condition of the root.
Researchers found none of the damage that might be expected if the canine had been forcibly extracted from a living person. Instead, its relatively smooth and undamaged surface led them to conclude that the tooth was probably collected after death, most likely from already skeletonized human remains.
That interpretation gives the pendant significance beyond its function as jewelry.
Human remains were not always treated simply as bodies to be buried and left undisturbed in prehistoric Europe. Bones and teeth could sometimes be retrieved, circulated or transformed into objects, although the meaning of such practices varied widely.
The Jablanica canine may therefore have carried a connection to a particular deceased person, lineage or social identity. Whether it represented remembrance, ancestry, status or another form of symbolism cannot be established from a single object.
Dating a Tooth Found on the Surface
Because the pendant was a surface find, it cannot be assigned a precise archaeological date from a sealed layer. Nor was the tooth itself directly radiocarbon dated.
Instead, Marković and Maričić combined several lines of evidence to place it within the Late Neolithic occupation of Jablanica, associated with the Vinča cultural period, broadly dated in the study to 5300/5200–4600/4500 cal BCE.
One comparison came from another ornament discovered at the site: a shell bracelet securely dated to around 4700 BCE. Researchers compared manufacturing traces on the bracelet with those on the tooth, looking for similarities in drilling technique.
The evidence supports a Late Neolithic date, although the authors acknowledge that an exact date cannot be established for an object recovered from the surface. That makes the commonly used description of the pendant as roughly 6,500 years old an approximate age rather than a direct measurement.
A Rare Human-Tooth Ornament in the Central Balkans
Personal ornaments are scarce at Jablanica. Apart from the human tooth pendant, researchers report only a shell bracelet fragment and another shell pendant from the site.
Modified human teeth are known from other parts of prehistoric Europe, but they remain uncommon. According to the study, the Jablanica canine is currently the only reliably documented human-tooth ornament from the Neolithic central Balkans.
That distinction makes a small, previously misidentified museum object unexpectedly important. It also demonstrates why older archaeological collections can still produce new discoveries. What spent years catalogued as an animal-tooth bead now provides rare evidence that some Late Neolithic communities in the central Balkans may have transformed part of a human body into an object that could be carried and worn.
Marković, N., and A. Maričić. 2026. “ Modified Human Tooth Pendant From the Late Neolithic (5300/5200–4600/4500 cal bc) Site of Jablanica, Serbia.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 36, no. 4: 1079–1086. https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.70151.
