Abstract
This paper attempts to explore beyond the predictable and banal archaeological explanations relating to early beads and pendants. It recounts replication experiments to establish aspects of technology so as to better understand what can be learnt from the quantifiable properties of these artifacts. The article also scrutinizes the available empirical record in the light of taphonomic logic to translate the known spatial and temporal distributions of such remains into epistemologically meaningful pronouncements about the significance of the primary evidence. It is shown that numerous reasonable deductions become possible by engaging such avenues of inquiry. For instance some beads, in which production has been pushed to the limits allowed by the medium, seem to express a sense of perfection, and it is contended that beads are among the most informative forms of exograms that could possibly have survived from these very early times. A key requisite for the use and appreciation of all beads and pendants is a level of hominin self-awareness that essentially expresses full cognitive modernity.
Highlights
In terms of the archaeological information about the way an artifact was produced, how it was used, and what happened to it after it was deposited in what we consider to be its archaeological context, the study of beads and pendants is productive
The very essence of a bead or pendant is to be threaded onto a string; it would be pointless to perforate a small object for another purpose but to pass a string though it
The replication of archaeological specimens is part of experimental archaeology, without which interpretation in this discipline is of very limited use
Summary
In terms of the archaeological information about the way an artifact was produced, how it was used, and what happened to it after it was deposited in what we consider to be its archaeological context (i.e. its taphonomy), the study of beads and pendants is productive. Shell beads are among the earliest “ornaments” found in many regions, including India (Francis, 1981: 140), China (Cheng, 1959: 31), Australia (Morse, 1993), South Africa (Henshilwood et al, 2004), Morocco (Bouzouggar et al, 2007), and Algeria (McBrearty & Brooks, 2000); and one of the earliest pendants of Europe, from the Châtelperronian of the Neanderthals, is even made of a fossil cast of a shell (Bednarik, 1995b: Figure 6) Irrespective of their cultural purpose, beads convey complex information about the wearer, which it would be impossible to create a context for without the use of a communication system such as language. We can no longer afford to ignore this kind of evidence (Bednarik, 1995a), which I will briefly describe here
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