We Have Always Liked To Bling

Turns out ice age humans liked to make and wear jewelry as much as we do. In Indonesia, scientists discovered 30,000-year-old jewelry, art, and artifacts that date back to the last ice age.

The new study, published on Monday, April 3, 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal, reports these items were all made by cave dwellers on modern-day Sulawesi, an island in the Indonesian archipelago. 

Some artifacts found recently were beads from the teeth of deer-pigs or babirusa shaped like small donut discs which were worn on a necklace in groups. The scientists also found a pendant made from a bear cuscus finger bone which had a hole drilled on the top to hang vertically on a necklace. 

The remains of these animals used in the making of these jewelry pieces have not been discovered in any other region of the world. Scientists theorize that Ice Age humans have adapted their spiritual and cultural beliefs when they crossed those ice sheets and encountered these exotic species.

All About That Swag

Jewelry is such an intrinsic part of human culture, and these new findings indicate a deeper meaning in Ice Age culture.