Stunning Prehistoric Jewelry Reveals 9 Hidden Societies in Ice Age Europe

For eons, humans have worn personal ornaments that tether them to their people; precious items that reflect a clan identity through life and into the grave. But those cultural associations don't always follow family lines.

A new study comparing thousands of pendants from across ice age Europe, dating to between 34,000 and 24,000 years ago, suggests there were at least nine distinct cultural groups of hunter-gatherers within the broader population referred to as the Gravettians, each with their own relatively distinct styles of ornament.

Additional analyses of genetic data from burial sites reveal that some of these categories shared the same cultural embellishments even though they were of different ancestries.



https://www.sciencealert.com/stunning-prehistoric-jewelry-reveals-9-hidden-societies-in-ice-age-europe