World's oldest jewellery found in cave 

  Around 75,000 years ago, in a cave near the southern Cape
  shoreline in South Africa, a human drilled tiny holes into the
  shells of snails and strung them as beads to make the oldest
  known jewellery - by at least 30,000 years. 

  Forty-one shells of the mollusc scavenger Nassarius
  kraussianus, with holes and marks in similar positions, have
  been found in a cave overlooking the Indian Ocean in South
  Africa, archaeologists from France, Britain and Norway report in
  today's issue of the journal Science. 

  The beads are dramatic evidence of modern human behaviour
  75,000 years ago. They are at least 35,000 years older than the
  earliest undisputed African ornaments - some ostrich eggshell
  beads found in Kenya - and around 30,000 years older than
  some perforated teeth ornaments from Bulgaria and a string of
  sea shell beads from Turkey. They are the first evidence of
  artistic creativity and symbolism in a creature otherwise known
  only for stone tools and weapons. 

  "The Blombos beads present absolute evidence for perhaps the
  earliest storage of information outside the human brain," said
  Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Bergen in Norway,
  the director of the cave project. 

  Two years ago, Prof Henshilwood found ochre, marked with
  abstract geometric representations, in the Blombos cave, along
  with bone tools and fishing equipment. But the beads provide far
  stronger evidence of abstract thought. 

  "Beads are an unequivocal argument that people are employing
  symbols to signify who they are," said Alison Brooks of George
  Washington University. "Body ornamentation seems to be a way
  humans symbolise status."

  Tim Radford, science editor
  Friday April 16, 2004
  The Guardian 
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1192998,00.html
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