Climate Change Genetics or Human Choice: Why Were the Shells of Mankinds Earliest Ornament Larger in the Pleistocene Than in the Holocene?

摘要

BackgroundThe southern African tick shell, Nassarius kraussianus (Dunker, 1846), has been identified as being the earliest known ornamental object used by human beings. Shell beads dated from ∼75,000 years ago (Pleistocene era) were found in a cave located on South Africa's south coast. Beads made from N. kraussianus shells have also been found in deposits in this region dating from the beginning of the Holocene era (<10,000 years ago). These younger shells were significantly smaller, a phenomenon that has been attributed to a change in human preference.