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Some late Stone Age Europeans may have carried make-up inside miniature bottles that they wore around their necks or waists more than 6000 years ago.

Researchers have discovered traces of ingredients known to be used in cosmetic formulations by later civilisations inside small bottles unearthed in Slovenia, dating to between 4350 and 4100 BC.

The finding suggests that lead-based cosmetics were possibly used in Europe more than 2000 years earlier than previously thought, and more than 1000 years before the earliest evidence of their use from ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures.

In 2014, at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia found a miniature ceramic bottle at an ancient site once occupied by people of the Lasinja culture in around 4350 BC.

More than 100 similar bottles have been found across 30 sites in central and south-eastern Europe. Their purpose was unknown, but it is thought that some might have been children鈥檚 toys due to their shapes, resembling animal or human heads.

Curiously, most of them have holes in their tiny handles or rims that archaeologists think people threaded string through, enabling them to be worn around the neck or waist.

But Kramberger鈥檚 find was different because it contained a solid white substance. 鈥淚t was clear that it hid valuable information because in such old archaeological sites, we rarely find vessels that still retain remnants of their former content,鈥� he says.

Long and thin stone tools were found near the bottle, which could have been used to extract the substance within.

鈥淢iniature vessels were, for far too long, considered to be children-related, and there is no denial that some probably have been,鈥� says at Durham University in the UK. 鈥淏ut I know that there was a much more diverse use of small vessels, and medicinal and cosmetic containers is as good as any.鈥�

Now, Kramberger and his colleagues have analysed the substance in the bottle he found and examined 13 others from the time.

The mystery material contained a white lead mineral called cerussite, while different lead minerals were identified in two other bottles. The findings match the dates of the earliest known use of lead in the region around 6400 years ago.

The three lead-containing bottles also had fatty molecules called lipids that come from beeswax inside. A possible plant oil was also detected in one of them, while another had traces of an animal fat.

The bottles鈥� contents could have been pigments for painting, says Kramberger. But he says it is more likely that they were cosmetics, possibly for medicinal purposes, because they contained common ingredients for such products known from later cultures.

Around 3100 BC, Mesopotamians ground lead-containing minerals, including galena and cerussite, into powders to use as grey or white pigments in early cosmetics. Ancient Egyptians also used these and copper ores for their distinctive green and black eye make-up, which they used for religious purposes.

But their make-up may have protected their eyes from the sun and prevented illnesses, too. Ancient Egyptian physicians also prescribed lead-containing treatments for eye conditions.

Gaydarska says the new study supports what archaeologists have long thought 鈥� 鈥渢hat the abilities and cultures of neolithic people were far more sophisticated than they are often given credit for鈥�.

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