Polished pendant: The finger bone of a bear cuscus Courtesy of Luke Marsden

Stone Age style was all about strange animal necklaces and bracelets. The first humans to cross the ocean from Asia to Australia fashioned jewellery from the bones, teeth and shells of the unfamiliar creatures they discovered on islands along the way.

The finding adds to evidence that early inhabitants of Australasia had symbolic practices that were just as rich as those of their European counterparts.

Modern humans first ventured out of Africa at least 60,000 years ago, with some travelling west towards Europe. Others spilled east, spreading to the southern edge of mainland Asia, before building boats and island-hopping to Australia about 50,000 years ago.


During this migration, they stumbled across a dizzying array of new and exotic plants and animals that differed from island to island. Emerging evidence suggests that they rapidly integrated these species into their symbolic lives.

Last year, for example, archaeologists reported that 42,000-year-old jewellery beads made from the shells of Nautilus pompilius – a South Pacific mollusc – had been found in a cave on the island of Timor.

Now, a team led by Adam Brumm and Michelle Langley at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, has dug up ancient ornaments fashioned out of the bones and teeth of native animals on the island of Sulawesi, about 900 kilometres north-west of Timor.

Tropical trinkets

One is a polished pendant made from the finger bone of a bear cuscus (Ailurops ursinus), a furry, tree-dwelling marsupial. A hole drilled in the top suggests it was strung from a necklace or bracelet, says Langley. The other two are beads made from the tooth of a curious-looking pig known as a babirusa or pig deer (Babyrousa sp.).

Close to the bone M. Langley and A. Brumm; Courtesy of Luke Marsden; Shutterstock

The three ornaments – between 22,000 and 30,000 years old – were found in an inland cave. The cave was chosen for excavation because it is near some of the oldest rock art in the world: a 35,000-year-old painting of a babirusa and a 40,000-year-old hand stencil reported by Brumm and his colleagues in 2014.

Brumm believes that future excavations on Sulawesi and other islands between Asia and Australia – known as the Wallacea region – are likely to yield further examples of prehistoric art and jewellery. “The area is woefully underexplored,” he says. Although there are 2000 islands in Wallacea, only seven are being investigated for early human occupation, he says.

Excavations of the cave site in Sulawesi courtesy of Justin Mott/Mott Visuals

Further research is also needed to piece together the route humans took from Asia to Australia, and how they altered their symbolic practices in each new environment. A 46,000-year-old kangaroo bone nose ornament recently uncovered in Australia has already confirmed that humans continued to adapt their jewellery-making skills to new fauna they encountered when they crossed over from the islands.

“For a long time, people thought that the spark of human brilliance and artistic genius came out of prehistoric Europe,” says Brumm. “But all these emerging findings show that there were complex, sophisticated, symbolic cultures flourishing on the other side of the world at the same time.”

Peter Veth at the University of Western Australia agrees. “The idea that complex, figurative behaviours did not exist in Wallacea and Australia at this time is just not true,” he says. “It’s exciting that we’re now filling in the gaps.”

Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1619013114