OUR ancient ancestors liked their bling as much as we do. And they probably liked talking about it too. The discovery of 100,000-year-old shell beads in what are now Israel and Algeria suggests that human language was already well advanced, and so must have developed earlier than thought.
Jewellery can indicate social or marital status, says Francesco D鈥橢rrico, at the Institute of Prehistory and Geology of the Quaternary in Talence, France. 鈥淏ut you need to have a complex system of language behind that.鈥�
D鈥橢rrico and colleagues examined shell beads from Skhul in Israel and Oued Djebbana in Algeria. Each shell has a hole in the back, most probably made by humans (Science, vol 312, p 1785). Two beads from Skhul are at least 100,000 years old, suggesting that language developed in Africa after anatomically modern humans appeared there some 200,000 years ago.
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