Archaeological discovery of the oldest decorative shell beads has been 65.438 billion years.
Beijing, June 23 (Xinhua) According to the Associated Press reported on the 23rd, in the process of "treasure hunting", scientists found three ancient shells that had been forgotten for decades among the rocks and bones in the dusty museum archives. According to the latest research, this shell ornament has a history of 654.38 million+years, which may be the oldest bead in the world so far.
These shells were originally collected from Israel and Algeria with a small hole in the middle, which shows that they were once worn as jewelry. Researchers who rediscovered these shells say that these beads are more evidence that symbolic thinking appeared earlier than previously thought. In today's western culture, jewelry seems to be no longer the basic type of cultural expression, but for archaeologists, ancient jewelry contains more cultural information than other ancient cultural relics.
"Personal decorations are not insignificant things," said Frans ·Ku· de Aleck, a member of CNRS·UMR. Its position in archaeology is extraordinary. They are symbols of the latest cultural trends of that era. "In the journal Science published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a non-profit natural science society, on the 23rd, De Aleck and his colleagues published this research result.
Over the years, archaeologists have excavated a large number of ancient cave paintings, musical instruments, jewelry and other works of art about 40 thousand years ago in Europe. These findings seem to reflect a typical revolution at that time, and the long-term biological revolution of human beings promoted the development of modern behavior. "Modern" here includes abstract thinking and understanding. It also means a lifestyle in which large groups live together; Make more and more complicated tools and houses, and then communicate with language.
De Aleck believes that from the history of modern human beings, it can be found that ancient human beings conveyed their relevant information through the jewelry they wore, such as their ethnic origin, age or social status. He said: "Personal ornaments are similar in that they can convey your intention. And they convey your image characteristics, not just the biological essence. "
However, why is the symbolic way of thinking rising so fast? 40,000 years ago, early modern people also lived in Asia, the Near East and Africa. So far, we haven't figured out what caused modern people in our so-called "revolutionary" hypothesis to leave their place of residence and come to Europe. Although many researchers still believe that some important biological changes triggered the landmark revolution 40,000 years ago, they have begun to realize that some aspects of modern human culture may have started earlier. Ma Lian Winheren, a researcher at the Metal Organic Chemistry Laboratory of University of London and the French National Center for Scientific Research, said: "Early humans may not have as rich material culture as Europe, but their cognitive ability and other modern cultural expressions have developed to an appropriate stage."
In 2004, the new discoveries of De Aleck, Wen Helun and their colleagues greatly promoted this idea. They found a pile of shells in the Blombos Cave, which is supposed to be 75,000 years old. There is a small hole in the center of these shells, which has obvious signs of wear and threading wear. Beads like this exciting shell have only been found in one place outside Europe. In order to draw accurate conclusions about the early origin of modern human behavior, researchers need evidence from other places.
In order to find more evidence about early beading, De Aleck, Wen Helun and their colleagues began to classify the collections of the Natural History Museum in London. During this period, the research team found a pair of shells from other relics collections. This pair of shells was discovered by British archaeologists Dorothy Gellard and Dorothy Bate in 1930 at the Shihur site in Israel. These two shells are woven snails, belonging to the same species as the beads found in blombos cave.
These beads are very small, hidden in rock samples and easily lost. Luckily, they found these beads. The researchers realized that the ancients may have collected shells in the sea to make ornaments, and even exchanged items with them and people at the seaside, which can also show how far human culture developed at that time.