In the framework of the EU-Beads project, two workshops were organised. The first one on Humans' Earliest Personal Ornaments: Symbolism, Production and Distribution, took place in March 2017 at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, Israel, and was co-organized with Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer. The second one entitled EU-Beads Workshop: Early Upper Palaeolithic personal ornaments and behavioural adaptations took place in October 2017 in Cambridge.
The study employed a series of state-of-the art and novel approaches to the study of personal ornamentation. Geochemical investigations into ochre and other pigments on shell ornaments, consumption waste of faunal resources, and within the sites sediments suggest that contrary to common believe the ornamental shells at Ksar Akil may not (or only in part) have been coloured intentionally. It is equally possible that pigments were deposited on the shells after deposition. Investigations into the dynamics of shell perforation clearly show human involvement in specimen selection and / or manufacture process revealing that indeed the Ksar Akil shells were used as ornamental objects. This has implications for the role of shell beads in socially mediated behaviours and communication of early modern human groups on one of the key-dispersal routes into Europe.
Results are detailed in four papers in peer-reviewed journals (published or in press), four non-peer reviewed papers. Two papers are in preparation: One paper on symbolically mediated behaviours in modern humans and one on the perforated shell of Kostenki 14. In addition, results were presented at several international platforms including three invited talks. Results were disseminated towards the wider public through the organisation and participation in several events, such as the Festival of Ideas, the Science Festival and eight publications for the general public.
No commercial exploitation of the research results is expected.
