Adapted from research for my University of Oxford Certificate of Higher Education in Archaeology.
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Most of us have probably done it.
We are walking along a beach and notice a beautiful stone or shell. We pick it up, turn it over in our hand and perhaps slip it into a pocket. Years later, we may still have it.
Objectively, it is just a stone. But to us it can hold the memory of a particular day, a place, the people we were with, the sound of the sea or simply the feeling of being there.
There is something about holding such an object in the hand. Its smoothness, weight and texture connect us physically to the natural world. A small stone can become comforting, grounding and deeply personal.
Perhaps this is one way of thinking about some of the earliest objects humans chose to collect and wear. Jewellery is often described as decoration. We wear it because we like the way it looks, because it completes an outfit, or simply because we enjoy beautiful things.
-But perhaps jewellery has never really been just decoration.
Long before jewellery became a fashion accessory, people were selecting objects, modifying them and wearing them on their bodies. And when we look at some of the earliest examples, it seems that these small objects were already doing something more than making the wearer look attractive. -They were communicating. The fascinating question is not really when jewellery became symbolic, but why humans have used objects on the body to communicate for so long.
Some of the earliest jewellery
At Blombos Cave in South Africa, perforated marine shells were being worn around 75,000 years ago. The shells had been deliberately selected and modified, and some show traces of pigment and colouring. They were not simply beautiful shells picked up and carried around. Someone had deliberately chosen them, made holes in them and turned them into something that could be worn. We cannot know exactly what these shells meant to the people who wore them. They might have communicated identity, relationships, belonging, status or something else entirely.
But we can see that the objects had acquired a meaning beyond the material they were made from. And that is an important distinction. A shell is not automatically a symbol. Its meaning comes from the people who use it and from the ideas shared within their society.
Jewellery becomes part of the body
Jewellery also changes when it is worn. At an archaeological site in western Russia, thousands of ivory beads were found associated with burials. Their quantities and positions suggest that people were wearing very substantial amounts of jewellery as individual pieces or as beads sown onto clothing. Looking at a reconstruction of a person wearing such ornaments, it becomes easier to imagine how different this may have been from the jewellery we normally wear today. Jewellery would have moved with the body. Some pieces may have caught the light, while others may have moved or made sounds as the wearer walked or danced. In other words, jewellery was not simply something placed on the body. It became part of the way the body was seen and experienced.
Jewellery can connect people
Jewellery can also tell us something about relationships between people and communities across large distances and time. 50,000 - 30,000 year old Ostrich eggshell beads found across Africa show remarkable similarities in their manufacture and appearance, even across considerable distances. Such similarities suggest that people shared ideas, symbology and ways of making and wearing ornaments across wide geographical areas. Jewellery can therefore give us clues not only about individuals, but also about connections between people. It can travel. Techniques can travel. Styles can travel. And perhaps, through these small objects, ideas travelled too.
And what about Neanderthals?
The story becomes even more interesting when we look beyond our own species. Neanderthals also selected and modified objects. Perforated shells have been found at Neanderthal sites, and their use may have had symbolic significance. This does not give us a simple answer about exactly when symbolic behaviour began. Instead, it suggests that the story may be much older and more complicated than the idea that modern humans suddenly invented symbolism.
So, has jewellery ever really been just decoration?
We will probably never know exactly what the first beads meant to the people who wore them.
But perhaps we can recognise something of ourselves in the simple human act of choosing and keeping an object. We still walk along a beach and pick up a stone. We turn it in our hands because we like its shape or texture. We take it home and, without necessarily intending to, give it meaning. Later, that small object can bring back an entire experience.
-A place. A person. A moment in time.
Thousands of years later, we are still doing something remarkably similar with jewellery.
We choose pieces because of how they look, but also because of where they came from, who gave them to us, what they remind us of and how they make us feel when we wear them.
The materials and styles change. But perhaps the human desire to select, hold, wear and give meaning to small objects is much older.
Perhaps jewellery has never really been just decoration.
-A small object can carry a story that is much larger than itself.
That idea is also at the heart of my Heirloom necklaces, where I incorporate personal objects chosen by the wearer into a piece of jewellery. A small object that may hold a memory, connection or private meaning becomes part of something new — carrying its story forward.
Read more about my Heirloom necklaces here:
Henshilwood, C., d’Errico, F., Vanhaeren, M., van Niekerk, K., and Jacobs, Z. (2004). Middle Stone Age shell beads from South Africa. Science, 304.
Rainio, R. and Mannermaa, K. (2014). Tracing the rattle of animal tooth pendants from the middle neolithic graves of Ajvide, Gotland, Sweden. World Archaeology, 46(3).
