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Published online on June 4, 2007, 10.1073/pnas.0703877104

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Anthropology-SS
82,000-year-old shell beads from North Africa and implications for the origins of modern human behavior

( anatomically modern humans | Nassarius shells | modern behavior | Middle Palaeolithic | optically stimulated luminescence )

Abdeljalil Bouzouggar a, Nick Barton b,c, Marian Vanhaeren d,e, Francesco d'Errico f,g, Simon Collcutt h, Tom Higham i, Edward Hodge j, Simon Parfitt k,l, Edward Rhodes m, Jean-Luc Schwenninger i, Chris Stringer k, Elaine Turner n, Steven Ward o, Abdelkrim Moutmir p, and Abdelhamid Stambouli p

aInstitut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine, 10001 Rabat, Morocco; bInstitute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2PG, United Kingdom; dEthnologie Préhistorique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7041 ArScAn, F-92023 Nanterre, France; eCentre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, University College London, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom; fInstitut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5199, PACEA, F-33405 Talence, France; gDepartment of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052; hOxford Archaeological Associates Ltd., Oxford OX4 1LH, United Kingdom; iResearch Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom; jSchool of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, United Kingdom; kNatural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom; lInstitute of Archaeology, University College London, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom; mResearch Schools of Earth Sciences and of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra 0200 ACT, Australia; nRömisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz (RGZM), Forschungsbereich Altsteinzeit, 56567 Neuwied, Germany; oCentre for the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom; and pLaboratoire des Recherches d'Analyses Techniques et Scientifiques de la Gendarmerie Royale, 10001 Rabat, Morocco

Communicated by Erik Trinkaus, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, April 28, 2007 (received for review March 23, 2007)

The first appearance of explicitly symbolic objects in the archaeological record marks a fundamental stage in the emergence of modern social behavior in Homo. Ornaments such as shell beads represent some of the earliest objects of this kind. We report on examples of perforated Nassarius gibbosulus shell beads from Grotte des Pigeons (Taforalt, Morocco), North Africa. These marine shells come from archaeological levels dated by luminescence and uranium-series techniques to {approx}82,000 years ago. They confirm evidence of similar ornaments from other less well dated sites in North Africa and adjacent areas of southwest Asia. The shells are of the same genus as shell beads from slightly younger levels at Blombos Cave in South Africa. Wear patterns on the shells imply that some of them were suspended, and, as at Blombos, they were covered in red ochre. These findings imply an early distribution of bead-making in Africa and southwest Asia at least 40 millennia before the appearance of similar cultural manifestations in Europe.

Author contributions: A.B., N.B., M.V., F.d., S.C., and C.S. designed research; A.B., N.B., M.V., F.d., S.C., T.H., E.H., S.P., E.R., J.-L.S., C.S., E.T., S.W., A.M., and A.S. performed research; A.B., N.B., M.V., F.d., S.C., T.H., E.H., S.P., E.R., J.-L.S., C.S., E.T., S.W., A.M., and A.S. analyzed data; and A.B., N.B., M.V., F.d., S.C., E.H., S.P., E.R., J.-L.S., C.S., E.T., and S.W. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

cTo whom correspondence should be addressed.

Nick Barton, E-mail: nick.barton{at}arch.ox.ac.uk

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0703877104
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