Near the western French community of Saint-Césaire, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a former jewelry workshop. There, jewelry from perforated mussels were made there 42,000 years ago and painted with color. This is the oldest workshop of this kind in Western Europe. The shell pearls were probably manufactured by the Châtelperronien culture-a transition culture between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. They apparently obtained their raw materials through long -distance trade and made accessories with a symbolic character for the first time.
The archaeological site of La Roche-à-pierrot is located near Saint-Césaire in the French department of Charente-Maritime. This place has been inhabited by various groups of people since the old between the old, at least 30,000 years. Various relics that archaeologists in Saint-Césaire have gradually excavated since 1976 testify to this. Among the prehistoric residents were both Neanderthals and representatives of the Homo sapiens.
The so-called Châtelperronien culture is a mixed form of the transition of these groups of people. 55,000 to 42,000 years ago, the last Neanderthals in France and Northern Spain were gradually replaced by Homo Sapiens’ groups who came from Africa. In the case of tools and objects from this period of slow demographic change, it is therefore often unclear whether they were created by one or the other group.
42,000 year old jewelry workshop
Now researchers around François Bachellerie from the French research organization CNRS have exposed another spectacular find at this point: a workshop for the production of mussel jewelry. The team found perforated and untreated mussel shells of the sea snail Littorina Obtusata, stone tools for their processing as well as red and yellow color pigments that are at least 42,000 years old in La Roche-SeChniche. Accordingly, the people of the Châtelperronien culture already made pearls from painted shells. There are similar finds from Italy and Greece, but younger date. It is the oldest workshop of this kind in Western Europe and the first industrial complex of the Paleolithic.
Analyzes also showed that the mussels came from the Brittany’s Atlantic coast, which was then about 100 kilometers from Saint-Césaire. The mineral pigments came from an area of more than 40 kilometers away. This suggests that the prehistoric jewelry manufacturers run long-distance trade in order to get their raw materials and that the people of the Châtelperronien culture hiked over significant routes.
Innovation through the arrival of the Homo sapiens
So far, this group of people has only been known to simple, unmoved jewelry from animal bones or teeth. But with the arrival of the first wave of the Homo sapiens in Europe and in the region around Saint-Césaire, they apparently diversified their craftsmanship and from then on also produced accessories from mussels, the researchers conclude from their finds. Accordingly, the Homo Sapiens driver of innovations in handicrafts – be it through his migration, his craftsmanship, his tools or his understanding of social. The painted jewelry and decorated with ornaments also testify that people began to regard personalized jewelry at the time as a symbolic expression of their identity, as the team explains.
Other objects found at the site include typical Neanderthal stone tools and the remains of hunted animals such as bison and horses. This underlines how complex and diverse the settlement of this place was in the Paleolithic period and that at times neither only Neanderthals nor exclusively Homo sapiens lived there. However, it remains unclear whether the Châtelperronien-Kultur Neanderthals were with homo-sapiens or Homo Sapiens.
Source: CNRS, specialist articles: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/PNAS.2508014122