Croatia – Neanderthals made jewellery from the talons of white-tailed eagles 150,000 years ago, it has emerged – indicating that the early human species had an aesthetic sensibility.
Eight claws found in Croatia – from at least three different eagles – were made into a necklace or bracelet, a new study shows. The jewellery was made 80,000 years before the first members of our own species, Homo sapiens, arrived in Europe.
Scientists say the discovery shows that Neanderthal man was not the brutish species he is frequently depicted as, but was capable of careful planning and an ability to recognise the symbolic beauty of body ornaments.
“Homo sapiens was not so unique in expressions of symbolism. A lot of evidence emerging in the last few years provides new information about the sophistication of Neanderthals, despite all the decades of prehistoric bias and discrimination against them,” said David Frayer, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas.
“Neanderthals are often thought of as simple-minded mumbling, bumbling, stumbling fools. But the more we know about them, the more sophisticated they’ve become,” Professor Frayer said.
The eight talons, found alongside a foot bone, were once attached to each other by a string or thread, the scientists believe. In addition to 21 individual cut marks, the talons have polished surfaces caused by one talon rubbing against another, said Professor Frayer, who was part of the team that identified the jewellery.
The talons were discovered 100 years ago at the famous Krapina Neanderthal site in Croatia, but it was only recently that scientists had recognised the human cut marks and signs of wear which suggest they were once part of a single item of jewellery. The study has been published in the online journal Plos One.
Davorka Radovcic, curator of the Croatian Natural History Museum in Zagreb, said: “It’s so unexpected because there’s just nothing like it until very recent times to find this kind of jewellery. It’s associated with fossils that people don’t like to consider to be human.”
The Independent