Abstract

Personal ornaments have come to play an important role in the debate on the origin of behavioural modernity and the evolution of our ancestors’ cognitive abilities. All authors agree in categorising beads as one of the hallmarks of cultural modernity, i.e. the cultural traits that underlie societies similar to ours. Divergent opinions exist, however, as to the dating of the first evidence of bead use and the taxonomic status of the first bead makers. Recent data seem to suggest that the most ancient personal ornaments were not put on in Europe but rather in Africa or in the Near East, and they can therefore no longer be seen as tied to the Aurignacian. It seems equally established in Europe that not only anatomically modern humans but also late Neanderthals produced and used such objects. Undoubtedly these discoveries have important implications for the question regarding the unique or multiple emergence(s) of symbolic thought and its association with one or more human types. But beads may offer more. In traditional societies they play at least fourteen different and often multiple roles (e.g. they may be used to beautify the body, function as ‘love letters’ in courtship, or as amulets, exchange media, expressions of individual and group identity, markers of age, class, gender, wealth or social status) which offer varied and rich information on the individuals, social groups, and societies that used them. This paper focuses on the variety of functions that personal ornaments have in human societies and on the methods we may use to understand the role beadwork played in the earliest symbolic cultures. Application of such methods to a review of the earliest evidence for bead use from Europe, the Near East, Australia and Africa suggests that the motives that stimulated the creation of beadwork traditions in the different areas were different. The main function of the earliest African beadworks seems to be that of circulating in an exchange system to reinforce reciprocity networks ensuring the survival of hunter-gatherer groups in times of stress. In Europe beads seem rather to have been used to strengthen affiliation to a group and visualise social and individual roles within the group.