Early Middle Stone Age personal ornaments from Bizmoune Cave, Essaouira, Morocco

El Mehdi Sehasseh (1) , Philippe Fernandez (2) , Steven Kuhn (3) , Mary Stiner (3) , Susan Mentzer (4) , Debra Colarossi (5) , Amy Clark (6) , François Lanoe (3) , Matthew Pailes (7) , Dirk Hoffmann (8) , Alexa Benson (5) , Edward Rhodes (9, 10) , Moncef Benmansour (11) , Abdelmoughit Laissaoui (11) , Ismail Ziani (12) , Paloma Vidal-Matutano (12) , Jacob Morales (12) , Youssef Djellal (13) , Benoit Longet (14) , Jean-Jacques Hublin (5, 15) , Mohammed Mouhiddine (16) , Fatima-Zohra Rafi (16) , Kayla Beth Worthey (3) , Ismael Sanchez-Morales (3) , Noufel Ghayati (1) , Abdeljalil Bouzouggar (1, 5)

1 INSAP - Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine
2 LAMPEA - Laboratoire méditerranéen de préhistoire Europe-Afrique
3 University of Arizona
4 Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen = Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen
5 Department of Human Evolution [Leipzig]
6 Department of Anthropology [Havard University]
7 OU - University of Oklahoma
8 Georg-August-University = Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
9 University of Sheffield [Sheffield]
10 UC - University of California
11 Centre National de l'Energie des Sciences et des Techniques Nucléaires (CNESTEN)
12 ULPGC - Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canaria
13 UCA - Universidad de Cádiz = University of Cádiz
14 AMU - Aix Marseille Université
15 CdF (institution) - Collège de France
16 UH2MC - Université Hassan II [Casablanca]

Ornaments such as beads are among the earliest signs of symbolic behavior among human ancestors. Their appearance signals important developments in both cognition and social relations. This paper describes and presents contextual information for 33 shell beads from Bizmoune Cave (southwest Morocco). Many of the beads come as deposits dating to ≥142 thousand years, making them the oldest shell beads yet recovered. They extend the dates for the first appearance of this behavior into the late Middle Pleistocene. The ages and ubiquity of beads in Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites in North Africa provide further evidence of the potential importance of these artifacts as signals of identity. The early and continued use of Tritia gibbosula and other material culture traits also suggest a remarkable degree of cultural continuity among early MSA Homo sapiens groups across North Africa.

Mots clés: personal ornaments; Bizmoune Cave; Tritia gibbosula; Early Middle Stone Age

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

El Mehdi Sehasseh, Philippe Fernandez, Steven Kuhn, Mary Stiner, Susan Mentzer, et al.. Early Middle Stone Age personal ornaments from Bizmoune Cave, Essaouira, Morocco. Science Advances , 2021, 7 (39), ⟨10.1126/sciadv.abi8620⟩. ⟨halshs-03362297⟩