Palaeolithic Personal Ornaments: Historical Development and Epistemological Challenges

Palaeolithic Personal Ornaments: HistoricalDevelopment and Epistemological Challenges

Oscar Moro Abadía & April Nowell

Published online: 21 June 2014# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Since the 1990s, archaeological publications concerned with Palaeolithicpersonal ornaments have diversified. This proliferation has resulted in an intense explo-ration of the multiple roles, whether symbolic, cultural or social, that these items mighthave played in prehistoric groups. As a result of this process, there is now a broadconsensus that these body adornments are important for exploring the origins of cogni-tive, artistic and symbolic behavior from an evolutionary perspective. This view contrastswith the conceptualization of Palaeolithic ornaments prevalent during the greater part ofthe twentieth century. At that time, these objects were rarely considered in debatesconcerning human evolution, art and symbolism. To explain this shift in the understand-ing of beads, pendants and other similar artifacts, we explore in this paper the history andthe epistemology of the concept of ‘ornament’ in the field of Palaeolithic archaeology. Inparticular, we analyse the factors underlying why the same kinds of objects have beenhistorically described in very diverse ways. We conclude by pointing out some of theepistemological challenges posed by the current revalorization of personal ornaments.

Keywords Personal ornaments . Symbolism . Portable art . Technology

Introduction

When, in the course of the 1987 Human Revolution conference, I presented mypreliminary work on Early Aurignacian personal ornaments, I was something of alone voice. Of the thirty-five contributors to the so-called ‘big red book’, I was

J Archaeol Method Theory (2015) 22:952–979DOI 10.1007/s10816-014-9213-z

O. M. Abadía (*)Department of Archaeology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canadae-mail: [email protected]: www.msh-paris.fr

O. M. AbadíaFoundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 190, Avenue de France, 75648 Paris, Cedex 13, France

A. NowellDepartment of Anthropology, University of Victoria, PO Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria,BC V8W 2Y2, Canadae-mail: [email protected]

the only one to treat body ornaments as evolutionarily important. It is gratifyingto see that much has changed over the past twenty years to the point that, in thepapers of the present conference, the presence or absence of personal ornamen-tation has become one of the key measures of modernity in the culture evolu-tionary record (White 2007, p. 287).

These words by Randall White illustrate a shift in the conceptualization of personalornaments, a distinctive class of artifacts that have recently acquired relevance indebates concerning the origins of art, symbolic behavior and modern cognition. Infact, in recent decades, we have often read that these items are “conveyors of the socialidentity of persons” (Zilhão 2007, p. 35), artifacts reflecting “changing social anddemographic conditions” (Kuhn and Stiner 2007, p. 48), “markers of ethnic, socialand personal identity” (Vanhaeren 2005, p. 542) and “archaeological expressions ofmodern cognitive abilities and evidence for the acquisition of articulate oral language”(d’Errico et al. 2003, p. 17). These are just a few examples of the current wave ofinterest in beads, pendants and other objects suspected to be used as body adornments(e.g. Taborin 1993, 2004; Bednarik 1997; White 2001, 2007; Álvarez Fernández 2002;d’Errico et al. 2003, 2008; Vanhaeren 2005; Vanhaeren and d’Errico 2006, 2011;Zilhão 2007; Álvarez Fernández and Jöris 2007; Hill et al. 2009; Golsenne 2011).The conceptualization of ornaments as artifacts imbued with highly symbolic, evolu-tionary and cognitive values contrasts with traditional interpretations of these objects.Influenced by ethnographic accounts, early twentieth-century scholars attributed a greatvariety of functions to Palaeolithic shells, beads and pendants, including beautifying thehuman body, establishing social and economic networks and reflecting primitive formsof religiosity (e.g. Rivière 1887, 1904, 1905; Fischer 1896, 1897; Giraux 1907;Chauvet 1910; Ballet 1915; Van Wetter 1920). However, discussions on these objectshad a limited impact on debates about human evolution, prehistoric symbolism andPalaeolithic art. In other words, during the first part of the twentieth century, archae-ologists rarely considered personal ornaments as evolutionarily, artistically or cogni-tively important.

To explain this shift in the archaeological understanding of beads and shells, weexamine in this paper the history and the epistemology of the concept of ‘personalornament’. To begin, some conceptual clarifications are in order. First, we focus on anumber of objects that archaeologists have typically grouped under the label of‘ornaments’ or ‘personal ornaments’ (les objets de parure in French, ornamentos inSpanish, die Ornamente in German). These items include shell beads, perforated teeth,pendants, rings, bracelets, carved bones objects, colorants and any other objectsuspected to have been used as a form of bodily decoration. Additionally, we will alsorefer to some more general ideas about ‘ornamentation’, a term that refers to the processof decorating, adorning or embellishing something (e.g. an object, the human body).Discussions about ornamentation are particularly important for understanding some ofthe values and meanings associated with Palaeolithic personal ornaments during the last150 years. With these considerations in mind, in the first part of the article, we focus onconceptualizations of Palaeolithic ornaments from the early days of prehistoric researchto the 1960s. We situate prehistoric studies within wider intellectual trends in anthro-pology and art history. In particular, we demonstrate how the first interpretations ofperforated shells, pierced teeth and other portable items were shaped by previous

Palaeolithic Ornaments: Historical and Epistemological Challenges 953

anthropological research. For instance, archaeologists used ethnographic parallels tosuggest that prehistoric shells and beads had served to decorate the human body and toconsolidate economic exchanges. Despite the variety of roles assigned to these pieces,personal ornaments were rarely mentioned in debates concerning Palaeolithic art andsymbolism. This is related to the fact that, during the first half of the twentieth century,the relevant theoretical perspectives in the study of prehistoric art came from art history,a discipline in which the importance of decorative arts was disregarded. As we show inthe second part of the paper, this situation began to change in the 1970s, when a numberof developments in archaeological method and theory engendered new perspectives onprehistoric ornamentation. For instance, the use of microscopes to investigatemanufacturing processes demonstrated that the making of several portable art objects(including ornaments) involved a number of technical skills. At the same time, newperspectives on prehistoric ornamentation were influenced by the more relevant devel-opments in material culture studies in the 1970s and 1980s, including structuralism andsemiotics. Under the influence of these theories, the last two decades have witnessed asignificant increase in the pace of publication of works on personal ornaments. Theseobjects have acquired analytical significance within different areas of Palaeolithicresearch, including studies in human evolution, art, symbolism, technology and cogni-tion. Furthermore, perspectives on personal ornamentation have benefited from a moreextensive dialogue among different specialists. For instance, developments in the studyof other elements of the archaeological record (such as the chaîne opératoire approach)have played an important role in the analysis of shells and beads. The currentdiversification of approaches to prehistoric ornaments, however, is not without prob-lems. The dramatic rise in the frequency of research projects focusing on prehistoricadornments has engendered new epistemological and theoretical challenges. We pro-vide a critical perspective of these challenges in the “Conclusion”.

Setting the Scene: Early Studies on Palaeolithic Ornaments

In approximately 1860, the archaeological association of stone tools with bones ofextinct animals became the first widely accepted evidence of the prehistoric antiquity ofhumankind. Following this recognition, other human-made implements were found in anumber of Palaeolithic sites. For instance, in 1864, Édouard Lartet and Henry Christyreported the discovery of many engraved and carved bones associated with prehistorictools in Southwest France (Lartet and Christy 1864). In the same year, the Marquis deVibraye discovered the Vénus impudique at Laugerie-Basse (Dordogne, France). To-gether with carvings and prehistoric tools, archaeologists found other artifacts thatcould not be easily classified as ‘utilitarian’ or ‘artistic’. Among these items werechunks of red ochre (Lartet and Christy 1865 I, p. 22), shell beads (Piette 1871, p. 253,1873, p. 409; Mortillet 1883, p. 398; Rivière 1887, p. 304), perforated canines andincisors (Piette 1871, p. 253; Lartet and Christy 1865 I, p. 22; Mortillet 1869, pp. 112–113; Mortillet and Mortillet 1881, planche XXIII; Mortillet 1883, p. 396; Cartailhac1889, p. 58), pendants (Piette 1873, p. 409; Figuier 1876, p. 148; Mortillet 1883,p. 396; Cartailhac 1889, p. 58), bracelets (Figuier 1876, p. 148), rondelles (Mortillet andMortillet 1881, planche XXIII), galets (Hardy 1891, p. 27) and engraved bones (Lartetand Christy 1865 I, p. 183; Mortillet 1883, p. 397). Additionally, archaeologists

954 Abadía and Nowell

published the first regional surveys of Palaeolithic personal ornaments at the beginningof the twentieth century. For instance, Gustave Chauvet compiled more than 200pendants found in the French region of Charente (Chauvet 1910). Similar accountswere published for the prehistoric ornaments found in Germany (Schmidt 1912),Switzerland (Sarasin et al. 1918) and Italy (Belluci 1900).

These objects caught the attention of many scholars, including geologists andbiologists. The case of the Fischer family can illustrate how archaeologists workedtogether with other scientists to examine prehistoric ornaments. Paul Fischer, author ofa celebrated manual of conchology (Fischer 1887), was among the first scholars toanalyse prehistoric ornaments. Thanks to his friendship with Émile Rivière and ÉduardPiette, he studied the shells from many French Palaeolithic sites, including Cro-Magnon, La Madeleine, Laugerie-Basse, Gourdan and Bruniquel. He divided prehis-toric shells into different species and suggested a number of functions for these objects,including magical and utilitarian purposes (Fischer 1876a, b). Some years later, his sonHenri Fischer (who married Piette’s daughter) examined the shells found by Piette atthe site of Mas d’Azil and undertook the first technological analyses of prehistoricornaments (Fischer 1896, 1897). Paul-Henri Fischer, Henri Fischer’s son, continued thefamily tradition and published several papers on Palaeolithic shells from a number ofFrench and Spanish sites (Fischer 1922, 1923, 1949a, b).

The first interpretations of prehistoric ornaments were highly influenced by earlyanthropological accounts. In fact, the nineteenth century was an age of great ethnolog-ical expeditions around the world. At that time, travellers and explorers providedWestern readers with detailed descriptions of the then-called ‘primitive’ societies (e.g.Cook 1821; Denham et al. 1828; Beechey 1831; MacGregor 1837; Hooper 1853;Baikie 1856; Williams 1858). These studies described different kinds of objects used insmall-scale societies including beads (Denham et al. 1828 II, p. 93; Beechey 1831 II, p.77; MacGregor 1837 I, p. 437; Hooper 1853, p. 84), perforated shells (Cook 1821 VII,p. 124; Denham et al. 1828 I, p. 78), bracelets (MacGregor 1837 I, p. 253), ivory ringsand anklets (MacGregor 1837 I, p. 375; MacGregor 1837 II, p. 146; Baikie 1856, p.113) and pebble necklaces (Baikie 1856, p. 269). In a context in which archaeologistsrecognized the value of ethnographic analogies, expanding anthropological knowledgehad a great impact on early interpretations of Palaeolithic ornaments. The fact that thefirst scholars writing on prehistoric ornaments often cited ethnographic accountsdemonstrates the influential role of anthropology in early archaeological research(e.g. Fischer 1876b, p. 182; Fischer 1887, p. 114; Fischer 1896, p. 637; Rivière1904, p. 85; Giraux 1907, p. 216; Fischer 1949a, p. 89; Fischer 1949b, p. 150).Inspired by ethnographic literature, scholars suggested that adornments had served agreat variety of purposes in prehistoric societies. We review these functions as the basisfor an in-depth discussion of early studies in prehistoric ornamentation.

To begin, ethnographic parallels (Barber 1876; Rochebrune 1882; Rivière 1903)fuelled the idea that the primary role of prehistoric beads and shells was to decorate thehuman body (e.g. Thieullen 1901; Rivière 1904; Giraux 1907; Grosse 1914, pp. 110–111; Peyrony 1914, pp. 52–53 and 67; Ballet 1915; Van Wetter 1920; Chauvet 1943).For instance, Paul Fischer argued that the Palaeolithic groups from La Vézère andGrimaldi collected Littorina littorea and Nana neritea for manufacturing personalornaments (Fischer 1876a). Likewise, Émile Rivière suggested that prehistoric groupsused dentalia or tusk shells as adornments (Rivière 1905). Similarly, Henri Fischer


examined how perforated shells were used to create a wide range of beautifyingobjects, including necklaces, hairnets and belts (Fischer 1896, p. 636). As theseexamples make evident, anthropologists and archaeologists typically assumed that‘primitive people’ were “passionately fond of ornaments […] they wear ornaments ofall kinds” (Lubbock 1870, pp. 46–47).

Archaeologists also suggested that marine shells served as money or barter objects tofacilitate commerce among prehistoric groups (Fischer 1876b, p. 182; Rivière 1904, p.85). This interpretation was encouraged by a number of ethnographic examples,including wampum, a form of money made from seashells used by aboriginal peoplein North America (Ingersoll 1883; Stearns 1877, 1889; Yates 1877). In this setting, thediscovery of ‘exotic’ shells in many archaeological sites was interpreted as evidence ofsocial and economic contacts among prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups. For instance,Paul Fischer considered the presence of fossil shells from the Isle of Wight in Laugerie-Basse as evidence of the development of the first marine systems of transportation(Fischer 1876b, p. 183). Similarly, according to Édouard Piette, the presence of non-autochthonous mollusc species in several French caves indicated a high level ofmobility among Palaeolithic groups (Piette 1873, pp. 410–411).

Early twentieth-century scholars also examined the religious and magical uses ofbeads, shells and other similar objects in prehistoric contexts. For example, EmileRivière argued that the hundreds of shells associated with the Grimaldi burials dem-onstrated the religious meaning of these items (Rivière 1887, pp. 304–305). Inspired byethnographic examples from New Hebrides and Tahiti, Paul Fischer suggested thatsome prehistoric groups used big-size shells as amulets or talismans (Fischer1876b, p. 182). In this setting, scientists also engaged in discussion about thesymbolic values of Palaeolithic personal ornaments (Fischer 1876a, p. 339; Fischer1876b, p. 183). These debates were spurred by the rising influence of anthropologicalresearch. For instance, towards the end of the nineteenth century, Franz Boas (1890,1897, 1898) examined the uses of masks, facial paintings and head ornaments on theNorthwest Coast of North America. He concluded that, in aboriginal societies, decora-tion reflected the affiliation of individuals to clans and secret societies (Boas 1890), aswell as their rank within the social group (Boas 1898, p. 14). Finally, in addition to thisimpressive array of functions assigned to ornaments, beadworks were also interpreted as‘curiosities’ (Guébhard 1907b, p. 413; Chauvet 1910, p. 115; Fischer 1949a, p. 91), foodprocessing tools (Fischer 1876a, p. 339; Fischer 1876b, p. 183; Grunevald 1936, p. 77)and items associated with superstitions and legends (Guébhard 1907a).

While anthropological accounts played an essential role in the understanding ofPalaeolithic shells and beads, early conceptualizations of prehistoric ornaments werealso informed by debates in art history. As many authors have pointed out, duringthe nineteenth century, arts and crafts became opposed (Shiner 2001, p. 5; Summers2003, p. 31). On the one hand, the ‘fine arts’ (music, poetry, painting, sculpture andarchitecture) were said to be a matter of genius and inspiration. On the other hand,‘technical’ activities such as embroidery, jewellery, woodcarving and mosaic workwere conceptualized as ‘minor art’ (Leland 1880, p. viii). This division engenderedpejorative attitudes towards decorative and popular arts all around Europe. InEngland, William Morris’ and John Ruskin’s Arts and Craft Movement denouncedthe depreciation of crafts and the elimination of traditional handicraft by mechani-zation and mass production. Owen Jones’ The grammar of ornament (1910, first


published in 1856) highly influenced Morris’ and Ruskin’s ideas. Furthermore,Jones’ book had a widespread impact on late nineteenth-century and earlytwentieth-century scholarship, including Charles Auguste Racinet’s L’ornement poly-chrome (1869), Heinrich Dolmetsch’s Der Ornamentenschatz (1887), Franz MeyerOrnamentale Formenlehre (1886) and Alexander Speltz’s Das Farbige Ornamentaller Historischen Stile (1915). In France, several Art nouveau movementscondemned the devaluation of popular arts associated with the shift from craftworkto mass production (Silverman 1989). For instance, in 1901, Eugène Grasset, HectorGuimard, Paul Follot and others founded La société des artistes décorateurs, anorganization which advocated broadening the status of the artist to include the artisan(Champier 1883). The Society of Decorative Artists organized a series of exhibits onjewellery and personal ornaments at the Musée Galliera in Paris, including La parureprécieuse de la femme in 1908, and Exposition des arts de la bijouterie, joaillerie,orfèvrerie in 1929.

Debates on ornaments and ornamentation were particularly important in theGerman-speaking world. In Austria and Germany, some authors called into questionthe denigration of ornaments associated with the ‘modern system of the arts’(Kristeller 1951). For instance, in his Style in the technical and tectonic arts orpractical aesthetics (1860), Gottfried Semper distinguished between high art (archi-tecture, sculpture and painting) and the industrial and technical arts (adornment,weapon, weavings, pottery). He claimed that the technical arts were “in a depressedposition […] first, in relation to the academy hierarchy, which snubs them; second,in a relation to the firm, which claims for itself the honor of success [and] third, inrelation to the public, which shares the prejudices of the academy and holds the so-called decorative arts in low esteem” (Semper 1860, p. 188, emphasis in theoriginal). However, Semper suggested that ornaments had a profound influence “onstyle and the formal essence of the arts” (Semper 1860, p. 247), and therefore, theyneeded to be studied by art historians. Following Semper’s suggestion, Aloïs Rieglwas the first to treat ornaments as a major theme of art history. In his book Problemsof style. Foundations for a history of ornament (first published in 1893), he proposeda formalist history of ornamentation. He suggested that ornaments had graduallyevolved through a number of styles in response to a ‘human artistic impulse’ orKunstwollen (Riegl 1992, p. 37). Significantly, he traced the origins of ornamentationto a number of engraved bones discovered in the caves of the Dordogne (Riegl 1992,p. 27). Semper and Riegl, however, constitute two exceptions to the widespreaddisinterest in ornaments among art theorists, artists and art historians. As a matter offact, most scholars rarely considered these objects as genuine ‘artistic’ works. This isevident, for example, in Adolf Loos’s theory of ornament. In his essay Ornamentand crime (1908), he suggested that, in the modern world, “we have art, which hastaken the place of ornament” (Loos 1908, p. 24). According to Loos, ornaments areappropriate for the Papuan and other ‘primitive’ people, but “freedom from ornamentis a sign of spiritual strength [in] modern man” (Loos 1908, p. 24). Georg Simmelalso devoted some important essays to ornaments. In The problem of style (firstpublished in 1909), Simmel embraced the distinction between applied arts and fineart. According to him, applied-art objects “are destined to be incorporated into life, toserve an external given end. In this they contrast completely with the work of art,which is imperiously closed within itself” (Simmel 1991, p. 66). This distinction


explains Simmel’s idea that “it is the greatest of error to think that adornment has tobe an individual work of art because it is supposed to always adorn an individual.Quite the contrary: because it is supposed to serve the individual, it need not itself beof individual essence” (Simmel 1908, p. 334). To sum up, ornaments were typicallyexcluded from the most influential twentieth-century art history narratives (e.g.Wölfflin 1950; Panofsky 1994; Gombrich 1950). Instead, these artifacts were theobject of analysis of a number of treatises on decorative arts (or on the origins of art)typically written from an anthropological viewpoint (e.g. Ranke 1879; Balfour 1893;Haddon 1895; Grosse 1914).

Prehistoric art specialists inherited art historians’ disdain for personal ornaments.During the first half of the twentieth century, Palaeolithic personal ornaments weretypically conceptualized as ‘minor art’ (Wernert 1952, p. 179). A review of the mostimportant texts on prehistoric art published during the period 1900–1960 illustratesthis point. Édouard Piette’s L’art pendant l’âge du Renne (a posthumous work editedby his son-in-law Henri Fischer) is a beautifully illustrated opus about portable art.While the book is mainly devoted to carvings, engravings and statuettes, Pietteexhibits a sympathetic attitude towards personal ornaments. He included theseobjects among the first artistic expressions of prehistoric people (Piette 1907, p.65) and he reproduced an impressive number of ornaments, including pendants(Piette 1907, p. 78), volutes (Piette 1907, p. 65), engraved objects (Piette 1907, p.78), decorated teeth (Piette 1907, plate LIV), combs (Piette 1907, plate XXIV),needles (Piette 1907, plate XLIII), rings (Piette 1907, plate XLVII) and insignias(Piette 1907, plate LXXV). However, with the exception of Georges-Henri Luquet(who dedicated an extensive discussion to decorative art in L’art et la religion deshommes fossiles, 1926), early prehistoric art specialists did not inherit Piette’s passionfor personal ornaments. For instance, in the two chapters that Cartailhac and Breuildevoted to mobiliary art in La caverne d’Altamira, there are only isolated referencesto pendants and perforated teeth (Cartailhac and Breuil 1906, pp. 131–132). InRépertoire de l’art quaternaire, Salomon Reinach excluded ornaments from “strictlyspeaking artwork” (Reinach 1913, p. xi). In Éléments de préhistoire, Denis Peyronyexamined personal ornamentation under the rubric of ‘traditions and customs’, notunder the label of ‘prehistoric art’ (Peyrony 1914, p. 59). In La préhistoire, LouisCapitan briefly referred to adornments in the chapter dedicated to the religion ofprehistoric people (Capitan 1931, p. 119). Likewise, the major mid-twentieth centurymonographs on Palaeolithic art published by Christian Zervos (1959) and PaoloGraziosi (1960) allotted little importance to Palaeolithic ornaments. As these exam-ples illustrate, early Palaeolithic art scholars paid little attention to shells, beads andother similar items. The same could be said of specialists in human evolution.During the first half of the twentieth century, palaeoanthropologists and archaeolo-gists did not consider ornaments as reflecting complex cognitive processes, andtherefore, they usually excluded these objects from their analyses. The fact thatreferences to these items are either very scarce or nonexistent in human evolutionliterature is the strongest argument that the evolutionary importance of personalornaments was overlooked at that time (e.g. Boule 1923, p. 254; Keith 1924; Smith1931; Weidenreich 1943, 1946; Howells 1954; Howell 1957). Interestingly, theseauthors did use other kinds of archaeological evidence (stone tools, parietal art) tomake inference about cognitive abilities.


Recent Conceptualizations of Palaeolithic Personal Ornaments

As we have seen in the previous section, during the first half of the twentieth century,discussions on the meaning of prehistoric ornaments were largely informed by ethno-logical research. Under the influence of early ethnographical accounts, scholars exam-ined a great variety of roles that these pieces might have played in prehistoric societies.At the same time, ornaments were typically excluded from studies of Palaeolithic art.This was mainly related to the fact that, at least until the 1950s, prehistoric art scholarsclosely followed trends in art history, a discipline that typically underestimated theimportance of decorative and personal ornamentation.

This situation began to change in the 1960s when a number of developments inarchaeology, anthropology and art history fuelled the emergence of new views onPalaeolithic ornaments. First, research on anthropology shifted from an ethnocentricparadigm towards a more reflexive approach. Traditional conceptualizations of orna-ments expanded then to incorporate new meanings and views. In particular, under theinfluence of semiotics, most anthropologists fully accepted the symbolic value of theseobjects. Second, research on Palaeolithic art in most parts of the world graduallytransformed itself from a practice anchored in art history to one that was moreanthropologically oriented. This explains why, during the last 40 years, anthropologicalideas about ornaments have gone well beyond ethnological studies and have becomewidespread in other disciplines dealing with material culture. In this section, we willexamine parallels between anthropological and archaeological research in ornamentsthat resulted not so much from direct transfers between both disciplines but from thefact that they drew from the same wider intellectual movements. Third, new perspec-tives on prehistoric ornaments have been fuelled by a number of developments inarchaeological method and theory. For instance, archaeological applications in micros-copy have engendered new ways of looking at shells, beads and other portable artifacts.Similarly, recent developments in the study of other prehistoric artifacts, includingportable art and stone tools, have stimulated original approaches to personal ornamen-tation. To sum up, all the above-mentioned developments have converged to promote adiversification of approaches to Palaeolithic ornaments.

Many of the more interesting studies of material culture that were produced in the1960s and 1970s were influenced in various ways by anthropological approaches tonon-Western art. This ‘anthropology-of-art literature’ (Gell 1998, p. 73) can be definedby a number of traits. First, anthropological studies at that time mainly focused on theanalysis of non-representational art (see, for instance, Schuster and Carpenter’s (1986)vast compilation of non-Western art). Interest in this kind of art was related to a numberof developments in the study of Western and non-Western art. In the field of art history,the rise of abstract art during the twentieth century, and the proliferation of visualstudies with its focus on many different kinds of images, induced a more positiveattitude towards non-representational art (Shiner 2001; Bal 2003; Summers 2003). Inthe field of anthropology, numerous scholars argued that if they held to the tradi-tional concept of art as representation, many of the images created by small-scalesocieties would have to be excluded from artistic analyses (e.g. Strathern andStrathern 1971, p. 1; O’Hanlon 1989, p. 17; Hanson 1983, p. 75). In this context,an impressive number of types of visual material culture were fully incorporated intothe anthropology-of-art literature, including ceramic decoration (Hardin 1983), masks


(d’Azevedo 1973b), clothes (Kaeppler 1978) and hairstyles (Adams 1983). Second,ethnographic studies were largely based on the idea that art traditions from small-scale societies were structured and systemic; that is to say, they were holisticcorpuses of interrelated elements. Under the influence of structuralism and systemstheory (e.g. Lévi-Strauss 1958, 1962; Douglas 1966), anthropologists applied therules of structural analysis to the study of artistic styles (Conkey 1980; Washburn1983), visual systems (Munn 1964; Korn 1978), ceramic decoration (Washburn1977) and personal art (Faris 1972; Munn 1973a). Third, under the ascendency ofsemiotics and iconography (e.g. Turner 1967; Geertz 1973; Dolgin et al. 1977), thesestudies promoted the idea that artistic traditions were highly symbolic, i.e. metaphor-ical expressions of meaning. Anthropologists and archaeologists (e.g. Ucko 1977;Morphy 1977; Myers 1986) examined the arts of non-Western societies as, forinstance, expressing ancestral cosmologies (Munn 1973a; Seeger 1981), systems ofbeliefs (Douglas 1970; d’Azevedo 1973a) and social values (Faris 1972; d’Azevedo1973b). Fourth, during the 1960s and the 1970s, it was customary to discussartworks of all kinds as ‘languages’ (Munn 1973b; Fernandez 1974; Layton 1978).The dominant position of the ‘linguistic model’ (Gell 1998, p. 164) resulted in anintense exploration of a variety of visual cultures interpreted as extra-verbal forms ofcommunication (Bateson 1973; Munn 1973b; Korn 1978).

These developments in anthropology engendered new interests in body art andpersonal ornaments. In fact, while early reflections on the social meaning of bodilydispositions can be traced back to Robert Hertz (1928) and Marcel Mauss (1934), itwas during the 1970s and the 1980s that the human body became the object of intensescrutiny by anthropologists and sociologists (e.g. Boltanski 1971; Benthall andPolhemus 1975; Blacking 1977; Polhemus 1978; Turner 1980, 1984). Following MaryDouglas’ (1970, p. 101) distinction between the physical and the social body, theseauthors examined different dimensions of the body, including the political, the sym-bolical, the medical and the gendered. In this setting, anthropologists became increas-ingly interested in the ‘decorated body’, i.e. in the role played by bodily decoration inthe enforcing and transmission of social roles, statuses, memberships and identities.This is exemplified by the pioneering work of Andrew and Marilyn Strathern on MountHagen (1971) and James Faris on Nuba (1972) in which they examined personalornaments from the lens of semiotics and structuralism (see also Paulme 1973; Seeger1975, 1981; Turner 1977, 1980; Adams 1983; O’Hanlon 1989). The Stratherns dem-onstrated the crucial role of shells in the ceremonial exchange system (the moka)between neighbouring groups in New Guinea’s Hagen. These objects were exchangedfor pigs and stone tools and they had a great ceremonial value (Strathern and Strathern1971, pp. 19–20). James Faris used structural analyses to show that body decorationfollowed precise social rules and served as a status indicator among the indigenousgroups from Nuba in Sudan (Faris 1972, p. 21).

Structuralism and semiotics also gave rise to new perspectives on prehistoricornamentation during the 1960s and the 1970s. For instance, André Leroi-Gourhanconsidered Palaeolithic ornaments as symbolic items reflecting important cognitivecapacities. In Le geste et la parole (1964), he argued that, among Neanderthals, thegradual development of the brain engendered a growing faculty for symbolization(Leroi-Gourhan 1964, p. 153). Leroi-Gourhan associated two main kinds of archaeo-logical remains with this faculty. First, he suggested that burials were the oldest


evidence indicating a primitive reflection on death. Second, he argued that pigmentsand ornaments were signs of an initial aesthetic concern. He considered these objects asevidence of “the overture of a new world: that of symbolic thought” (Leroi-Gourhan1964, p. 159). Additionally, Leroi-Gourhan was the first to include a chapter onpendants in a seminal book on prehistoric art (Leroi-Gourhan 1995, first published in1965). Under his influence, a number of French archaeologists in the 1970s exploredthe symbolic meanings associated with personal ornaments (e.g. Ferrier 1971; Taborin1977).

While anthropological studies encouraged a change of attitude towards body orna-mentation, the 1970s and the 1980s witnessed a number of developments in archaeol-ogy that are equally important for understanding the rise of new approaches to the studyof Palaeolithic ornaments in the last two decades. To begin, certain developments inarchaeological theory, especially where archaeology was strongly aligned with anthro-pology such as in the USA, gave rise to a greater understanding of non-representationalprehistoric imagery, including non-figurative representations, geometric signs and, ofcourse, personal ornaments. For instance, since the 1970s, a number of authorsdeveloped the ‘art-as-information’ approach (e.g. Conkey 1978, 1980, 1984, 1985;Marshack 1976, 1979; Wobst 1977). Under the influence of structuralism and semiot-ics, they interpreted prehistoric images as systems of communication that “have a rangeof meaning and uses […] but that derive more specific meaning from the context ofaction or use” (Conkey 1980, p. 244). These authors suggested that style was the mainmeans by which prehistoric groups transmitted “qualitatively richer kinds and amountsof information while retaining great flexibility” (Conkey 1978, p. 74). In other words,stylistic variability was not interpreted in formalist terms, but as “that aspect of formand structure […] which can be related to processes of information exchange” (Wobst1977, p. 335). Additionally, some of these authors called into question customaryconceptions of Palaeolithic art. In particular, they claimed that the use of the term‘art’ had contributed “to our condensing all the diversity of media and imagery into asingle category that is, furthermore, one of ‘our’ categories” (Conkey 1987, p. 413).They argued that, during most of the twentieth century, prehistoric art specialistsfavoured the study of the most realistic Palaeolithic representations (especially cavepaintings), underestimating the importance of thousands of non-representational images(Clottes 1990; Conkey 1997; Tomásková 1997). For this reason, they proposed toreplace the term ‘art’ by concepts such as ‘image’ or ‘representation’ that, while notunbiased themselves, at least allow archaeologists to meaningfully approach morekinds of prehistoric visual cultures (Conkey 1987; White 1992). The main consequenceof this debate was that a number of traditionally disregarded Pleistocene images wereincorporated into Palaeolithic art studies, including sequentially marked objects(Marshack 1972), engraved artifacts (Conkey 1980) and personal ornaments (White1989a, b). In addition, interpretations of these images drew on new explanatoryframeworks, such as cognitive approaches (Marshack 1972, 1979) and social geogra-phy (Conkey 1984), which would become popular in the analysis of portable objects bythe end of the century.

Together with these theoretical trends, recent conceptualizations of prehistoricornaments have emerged from of a number of technological developments. In partic-ular, the introduction of new photographic techniques in the 1970s allowed archaeol-ogists quite literally to see Palaeolithic portable art and personal ornaments differently.


In fact, since the late 1950s, Christian Zervos (1959) and Paolo Graziosi (1960) usedhigh-resolution photographs to illustrate their books on prehistoric art, as did Leroi-Gourhan with Jean Vertut’s pictures in his 1965 tome. While they all used conventionalphotographic techniques, the resolution and quality of these pictures enabled scholarsto better appreciate the complexity of prehistoric images. It was, however, AlexanderMarshack’s work that marked a revolution in the use of photographic techniques inPalaeolithic art studies. In fact, Marshack was the first to examine marks, engravingsand portable art pieces through the lens of a binocular microscope with variable focus(Marshack 1970, 1972). As Paul Bahn has pointed out, “his astounding photographs ofportable art objects caused us all to see them with fresh eyes” (Bahn 2009, p. ix).Furthermore, Marshack inspired various specialists who, during the subsequent de-cades, made significant contributions to the study of Palaeolithic art and symbolism,including Randall White and Francesco d’Errico.

These developments have engendered new ways of approaching Palaeolithic orna-ments during the last 25 years. On the one hand, the growing interest in discussingprehistoric material culture in a context that is more explicitly anthropological hasallowed archaeologists to examine personal ornaments from new perspectives, i.e. tosee them as a vehicle for asking questions about social, cognitive and other roles. Onthe other hand, the introduction of modern microscopy techniques has revealed newfacets concerning the material knowledge of Pleistocene peoples, including themanufacturing of prehistoric ornaments. As a result of these processes, the last twodecades have witnessed a veritable ‘explosion’ of publications on prehistoric personalornamentation. In short, approaches to these items have greatly expanded during thelast years. We now discuss current trends in the study of Palaeolithic ornamentationfrom the point of view of a series of interrelated areas. In particular, we examine fourfields in which discussions on ornaments have become especially relevant in recentyears: Pleistocene art and symbolism, technological studies, cognitive approaches andstudies in the social geography of hunter-gatherer groups.

Pleistocene Art and Symbolism

Personal ornaments have played an essential role in recent debates on the emergence ofart and symbolism. If the evolutionary importance of these items was overlooked untilthe 1970s, starting in the 1980s, a number of authors began to consider ornaments asone of the traits defining the emergence of modern human behavior (White 1982, p.170; Pfeiffer 1982; Chase and Dibble 1987, p. 281; Mellars 1989, p. 353; Klein 1989).Coloring materials (Wreschner 1980; Marshack 1981), beads (White 1989a, b) andengraved items (Marshack 1979) were fully incorporated into discussions about the riseof symbolic thought. In this context, we can distinguish between conceptual andtechnical contributions of the analysis of Palaeolithic ornaments. On the conceptualside, research by Randall White stimulated innovative theoretical approaches to pre-historic personal ornaments. Until the 1970s, Pleistocene art specialists largely restrict-ed their analyses of personal ornamentation to perforated teeth, bone pendants andengraved objects (see, for instance, Leroi-Gourhan 1995, pp. 93–97). Under theinfluence of social anthropology (White often quoted the works by Terence Turnerand Andrew Strathern; e.g. White 1989b, p. 97; 1992, p. 540), White was the first toconsider that shells and beads were as symbolically important as any other Pleistocene


artwork (e.g. White 1989a, 1992, 1997). He interpreted these objects as “vehicles forconstructing and representing social identities” (White 1989b, p. 97) and argued that“personal ornaments, perhaps more than any other aspect of the archaeological recordare a point of access for archaeologists into the social world of the past” (1992, p. 539).Concerning more technical developments, Francesco d’Errico developed an electronmicroscopic technique for studying Azilian engraving marks in his doctoral thesis(d’Errico 1989). While Marshack was the first to apply microscopy to the analysis ofPalaeolithic art, d’Errico used this method more extensively and within a more strictlyscientific paradigm. In particular, he applied this technology to the analysis of differentkinds of manufacturing procedures (e.g. d’Errico 1988; d’Errico and Villa 1997;d’Errico and Nowell 2000), including those involved in the making of personalornamentation (d’Errico et al. 2005, 2008). Through controlled experimentation, hedeveloped a number of criteria against which the anthropogenic nature of portable artobjects could be evaluated and the techniques of their manufacture could be elucidated.

The 1990s witnessed the inauguration of the debate about the role of body orna-mentation in the emergence of modern behavior (see, for instance, Davidson and Noble1992; Morse 1993; d’Errico et al. 1998). In particular, some authors developed the‘multiple-species model’ for the origins of modern behavior (d’Errico 2003; Zilhão2007) by arguing that most of the archaeological traits defining behavioral modernitywere not exclusive to anatomically modern humans, but that they arose among ‘non-modern’ populations like late Neanderthals in Europe (d’Errico 2003; Zilhão 2007).Significantly, this model was mainly based on the attribution by Leroi-Gourhan (1958,1961) of the personal ornaments from the Châtelperronian levels of Grotte du Renne toNeanderthals (an ascription questioned by White 2001; Mellars 2010; Higham et al.2010, but see Hublin et al. 2012). These adornments include perforated beads andteeth, grooved animal canines and manufactured incisors of bovid, horse, marmot, bearand reindeer. The ‘multiple-species model’ is opposed to the ‘single-species model’, atheory suggesting that early modern humans were the only group of hominins with thecognitive hardware necessary to develop symbolic and artistic behaviors. According tothis model, Neanderthals did not independently create the ornaments from Grotte duRenne, instead they mimicked modern humans’ behavior (Mellars 2005, p. 21).Significantly, both the proponents of the multiple-species model and the single-species theory characterize personal ornaments as evolutionarily important items(d’Errico et al. 2003; Vanhaeren 2005; Vanhaeren and d’Errico 2006; Zilhão 2007;White 2007; d’Errico et al. 2009; Mellars 2010; Vanhaeren et al. 2013). Similarly,personal ornaments have played an essential role in recent debates concerning thepeopling of Sahul (e.g. Balme and Morse 2006; Balme et al. 2009; Leavesley 2007;Veth et al. 2011).

Additionally, paralleling developments in the ‘anthropology of the body’ (Blacking1977; Samuel 1990; Counihan 1999; Mascia-Lees 2011), proponents of an ‘archaeol-ogy of the body’ (e.g., Fisher and Loren 2003; Hamilakis et al. 2002; Joyce 2005; Borićand Robb 2008) have extensively examined the many symbolic roles associated withpersonal ornaments in the last two decades (Taborin 1993, 2004; Morse 1993;Vanhaeren 2005, 2010; Bouzouggar et al. 2007; Hill et al. 2009). For instance,Rosemary Joyce (2005) has examined the difference between semiotic and phenome-nological approaches. Within a semiotic approach, she argues that personal ornamentsare described as ‘passive’ vehicles for transmitting information and signalling identity.


In other words, personal ornaments are understood as communicating alreadyestablished aspects of an individual’s social status or social identity. Conversely, shemaintains that within phenomenological approaches to personal ornamentation, the roleof ornaments in the creation of self and in the shaping of human experiences isemphasized. This approach allows for a conceptual transition from ‘body ornaments’to ‘ornamented bodies’ (Joyce 2005, p. 142).

Technological Studies

Recent developments in technological studies have opened new perspectives in theanalysis of different elements of the archaeological record, including prehistoric orna-ments. Lithic studies have played a leading role in this process. In the 1960s and 1970s,the study of stone tools was largely dominated by the typological approach developedby François Bordes some years earlier (1950, 1953, 1961). Seeking to recognize thecultural variability among prehistoric assemblages, archaeologists working within thisparadigm created type-lists of tools for the different periods of human prehistory (e.g.Tixier 1963; Laplace 1964, 1968; Hours 1974). Increasing discontent with typologicalapproaches emerged in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g. Dibble 1987, 1989; Barton 1988;Kuhn 1995; Bisson 2000). These critiques triggered “the practical and theoretical shiftto the study of lithic technological variability in a different way, one more in line withthe anthropology of technology” (Bar-Yosef and Van Peer 2009, p. 104). Since the1990s, archaeologists have begun to focus on the social, cultural and technologicalcontexts of stone tools. For instance, archaeologists have examined the relationshipsbetween human agency and lithic technology (Schlanger 1990; Dobres 2000, 2001;Van Peer 2007), the social contexts in which technologies are created and developed(Soffer 2000; Soffer et al. 2000; Lemonnier 2002; Skibo and Schiffer 2008) and therelationships between technology and human cognition (e.g. Perlès 1992; Schlanger1996; De Beaune 2004; Nowell and Davidson 2010). These studies have had a greatimpact in recent work on prehistoric ornamentation. For instance, it is not by chancethat archaeologists are now using the same methods to examine both stone tools andpersonal ornaments, including optical and scanning electron microscopy, microwearanalyses, scientific methods for recognizing artificially produced perforations andinnovative experimental techniques (d’Errico and Villa 1997; d’Errico and Nowell2000; Nowell and d’Errico 2007; White 2007; Cuenca-Solana et al. 2013). Addition-ally, ideas and concepts first developed in lithic analyses are today very popular inPalaeolithic ornament studies. A prime example is the chaîne opératoire approach. Thisterm first originated in lithic studies (e.g. Boëda et al. 1990; Pelegrin 1993; Soressi andGeneste 2011) to designate the process of transformation of stone materials into tools,including the selection of raw materials, the employment of various strategies of corereduction, the use of retouching techniques and the impact of the geographical contextin which given lithic assemblages were produced. The underlying assumption of thisapproach is that artifacts could be used to reconstruct the decision making process ofancient knappers. The chaîne opératoire approach has been used to describe thecognitive processes involved in the planning and making of many objects, includingportable art and personal ornaments. Marcel Otte was the first to reconstruct the ‘chaineoperatoire’ of Palaeolithic ornaments (Otte 1974). Years later, many authors built onOtte’s pioneering work by reconstructing the operational sequences involved in the


making of prehistoric beads (e.g. White 1995; Farbstein 2011a, this approach has alsobeen challenged, see the comments on Farbstein 2011b). For instance, White (1995)has reconstructed a chaîne opératoire summarizing the actions carried out in themaking of Aurignacian beads. In the first stage, Aurignacian people fashioned apencil-like rod in ivory or chlorite. Second, they engraved grooves of 1 to 2 cm aroundthe piece. Third, they thinned it to create a stem at one end and a bulb at the other.Fourth, they perforated the cylinder at the junction of the stem and the bulb. In the finalstage, they polished the ornament by coarse abrasion (White 2007, p. 296). Thereconstruction of the operational sequence of beads demonstrates that the making ofthese objects had a technical base that is more complex than previously suspected.Additionally, this approach reveals that Palaeolithic groups invested a lot of time in themaking of body adornments. The fact that people devoted so much effort inmanufacturing beads indicates the social importance of these items. Like White,numerous authors have explored the interface between technological and social choicesin the production of personal ornaments (Vanhaeren 2005; Vanhaeren and d’Errico2006; Soressi and d’Errico 2007).

Cognitive Approaches

Studies of cognition and theory of mind have significantly contributed to the recentdiversification of work on Palaeolithic ornaments. In fact, cognitive approaches werefirst applied to the analysis of portable objects in the 1970s. At that time, AlexanderMarshack suggested that several engravings on Upper Palaeolithic bones were ‘nota-tions’ revealing “a practical and a symbolic sense of coming of time, as well as variedtechniques either for utilizing or making notational slates and marking off units of time”(Marshack 1972, p. 90). Archaeological interests in cognition were fuelled by the riseof cognitive archaeology in the 1980s, a discipline seeking to reconstruct the origins ofcognitive behaviors from the scientific analysis of the archaeological record (Renfrew1982; Davidson and Noble 1989; Donald 1991; Renfrew and Zubrow 1994; seeNowell 2001). However, it was in the 1990s when an increasing number of archaeol-ogists began to interpret personal ornaments as reflecting important cognitive abilities.Studies in the origins of language can illustrate this point. In the early 1990s, IainDavidson and William Noble developed a psychological model for explaining thearchaeology of language origins (Davidson and Noble 1989, 1993; Noble andDavidson 1991, 1996). In short, they argued that, unlike other communication systems,language is a collection of symbolic gestures (whether verbal, manual or material) thatconvey meanings. Language’s distinctive trait is its ‘second-order’ or ‘reflective’nature, i.e. the fact that those who use language recognize meaning in conventionallydefined arbitrary signs. They examined the archaeological record looking for traces ofthis ‘second-order’ meaning and they suggested that, in a context of symbolic com-munication, “identification of ingroup or outgroup membership could be enhanced bydistinctive personal decoration” (Davidson and Noble 1992, p. 139). Like Davidsonand Noble, other authors have interpreted beads as elements of linguistic systemscreated for transmitting information among the members of one or several groups.For instance, Kuhn and Stiner have suggested that the marine shell beads found inÜçağizli Cave and other sites were forms of communication developed to cope withnew demographic, social and economic conditions (Kuhn et al. 2001; Kuhn and Stiner


2007; Stiner et al. 2013). Similarly, Vanhaeren and d’Errico (2006) have argued that thepersonal ornaments from many Aurignacian sites may correspond to different ethno-linguistic entities. Additionally, Henshilwood and other authors have interpreted thebeads found at Blombos cave in South Africa in terms of ‘syntactical’ languages(Henshilwood et al. 2004; d’Errico et al. 2005; d’Errico and Vanhaeren 2009;Henshilwood & Dubreil 2011). However, these approaches are not without critics(see, for instance, Roebroeks and Verpoorte 2009; Wynn and Coolidge 2010 and IainDavidson’s comments on Henshilwood & Dubreil 2011). For instance, Rudolf Bothahas argued that Henshilwood did not provide the theoretical underpinnings for using theworld ‘language’ in the context of recent discussion on the topic (Botha 2008, 2009).Additionally, shells and ornaments have been considered important archaeologicalproxies for exploring other cognitive human faculties, including memory (Wynn andCoolidge 2010; Nowell 2010), musicality (Mithen 2005, 2009), symbolization (d’Erricoet al. 2003; Zilhão 2007), perception (Davidson and Noble 1989), and numeracy and theconcept of time (Overmann 2013).

Studies on the Social Geography of Hunter-Gatherer Groups

The importance of personal adornment, social networks and mobility in the prehistoricarchaeology of hunter-gatherer groups has taken on new interpretive dimensions withthe development of spatial analyses in archaeology. There are a number of theoreticaldevelopments that, without being directly linked to recent work in Palaeolithic orna-ments, have contributed to opening new perspectives on the relationships betweenportable items and hunter-gatherer spatial organization. To begin, applications of socialgeography to archaeological research in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in new ap-proaches to Palaeolithic material culture (e.g. Hodder and Orton 1976; Hodder 1982;Gamble 1982, 1986, 1991; Jochim 1983, 1987; Barton et al. 1994). For instance,Margaret Conkey expanded the traditional distinction between rock art and portable artto suggest that these artworks reproduced different spatiotemporal structures. On theone hand, rock art is fixed in the landscape and this fact determines the making andusing of these art forms by prehistoric groups. On the other hand, portable art “has thepotential not just to move around, but also to move around several orders removed fromthe original makers and users” (Conkey 1984, p. 269, for the implications of the spatialdistributions of portable items, see also Sieveking 1976, 1978, 1979; Gamble 1982;Davidson 2005; Davidson 2013). Later researchers have fruitfully exploited thisdistinction. For example, numerous scholars have examined rock images through thelens of landscape archaeology. They have argued that marks and images painted andengraved in rock surfaces (or on the walls of the caves) served as sacred landmarks,territorial markers and systems reflecting ancestral cosmologies (e.g. Chippindale andTaçon 1998; Chippindale and Nash 2004; Bradley 1997, 2009). On the other hand,portable objects (whether raw materials, lithic tools or portable representations) havebeen described as highly mobile items that can be used to examine prehistoric groups’geographic distribution. For instance, Olga Soffer and others have demonstrated theexistence of important differences between Western, Central and Eastern Europeconcerning the representation of the Palaeolithic ‘Venus’ figurines (Soffer et al.2000). Similarly, studies on shellfish patterns of seasonality (Alvárez Fernández2002; Gutiérrez Zugasti 2011; Gutiérrez Zugasti et al. 2011) and ‘ethnic-markers’


(Boyd and Richerson 1987; Nettle and Dunbar 1997; McElreath et al. 2003) havegenerated new avenues of research for examining the relationships between materialculture and hunter-gatherer mobility. Likewise, studies in social networks have playedan important role in understanding how utilitarian and non-utilitarian items are trans-mitted from one group to another in order to establish and maintain social ties (Whallon2006). In this setting, archaeologists have also drawn attention to the potential forpersonal ornaments to move great distances and, therefore, to express social, linguisticand ethnic affiliations among Palaeolithic groups (Newell et al. 1990; Joyce 2005;Vanhaeren 2005, 2010; Vanhaeren and d’Errico 2006; Zilhão 2007; Alvárez Fernández2009; Álvarez Fernández and Carvajal Contreras 2010).

Conclusions

Starting in the 1990s, topics of archaeological research concerned with personalornaments have greatly diversified. From these new perspectives, body ornaments areunderstood as artwork imbedded with highly symbolic values, as items reflectingimportant cognitive and neural capacities, as objects resulting from complex techno-logical processes and as ethnic-markers signalling cultural group memberships. Nomatter how fascinating these publications are, they are not without problems. Inparticular, it seems as if the enthusiasm for the heuristic value of personal ornamentshas somehow led to the avoidance of a number of epistemological and methodologicalissues. In this conclusion, we highlight what we believe are the three main challenges(terminological, conceptual and interpretative) facing researchers who studyPalaeolithic ornamentation.

The first challenge refers to the terminology and, in particular, to the use of the word‘ornament’ to describe a very heterogeneous set of artifacts. It is important to keep inmind that the description of perforated shell, pierced teeth and other items as ‘personalornaments’ is not a value-free description but a historically determined interpretation.In fact, the term ‘ornament’ was introduced in archaeology during the second half ofthe nineteenth century, a moment in which the use of ethnographic parallels waswidespread (Orme 1974). In this sense, this concept is inevitably linked to a numberof nineteenth-century connotations. In particular, it is important to remember that theterm ‘ornament’ refers to “a thing used or serving to make something look moreattractive but usually having no practical purpose, especially a small object such as afigurine”. Therefore, the use of this term entails the implicit assumption that the mainfunction of marine shells, beads and pendants was that of adorning or beautifying thehuman body. However, this assumption seems somewhat reductionist in the light of themany social, symbolic, cognitive and artistic values currently attributed to these items.While, as it happens with other technical terms, it may be too late to look foralternatives, archaeologists should at least be aware of the fact that the concept of‘personal ornament’ is highly connoted, as they are aware of the prejudices biasingother ideas used in archaeological research such as the idea of ‘art’ (e.g. Conkey 1987;Soffer and Conkey 1997; Tomášková 1997; White 1997; Davidson 1997, 2013; MoroAbadía 2006; Moro Abadía and González Morales 2008, 2013).

A second set of problems has to do with the way in which archaeologists use certainconcepts in current research on Palaeolithic ornaments. A number of conceptual issues


can be distinguished here. First, current research on personal ornaments emerges from ascientific and literate milieu that is certainly very different from that of those whoperforated shells and other items thousands of years ago. Concepts such as ‘cognitiveabilities’, ‘syntactical languages’, ‘ethnic-markers’ and ‘modern behavior’ are alltheoretical constructs coined in the highly technical Western world of the beginningof the twentieth-first century. While this is not to say that these terms are inappropriate(scientific terms always incorporate a number of unexamined assumptions), archaeol-ogists should at least use them carefully. For instance, in a recent paper, Will Roebroeksand Alexander Verpoorte have suggested that language-based interpretations are oftenunnecessarily framed in ‘cognitive’ terms. Focusing on the Neanderthal record, theyhave argued “more mundane interpretations are possible, for which we do not need touse the concept ‘language’ at all” (Roebroeks and Verpoorte 2009, p. 152). Second, theexpansion of approaches to the study of Palaeolithic ornaments has entailed a diversi-fication in the concepts, ideas and theories used in archaeological research. Frequently,such concepts are borrowed from other disciplines, and sometimes, they lack analyticstrength. For instance, Rudolph Botha, a Professor of General Linguistics, has exam-ined the use of a number of linguistic concepts, such as ‘fully syntactical language’, inrecent archaeological research. He has argued that it is sometimes unclear what theseterms refer to (Botha 2009, p. 99). Additionally, he has suggested that archaeologistshave the tendency to adopt a concept of language “in which language and […] otherentities are simply collapsed into one entity with a single evolutionary history” (Botha2009, p. 101). This view contrasts with recent development in linguistics suggestingthat “profitable research into the biology of ‘language’ requires its ‘fractionation’ intocomponents, mechanisms and interfaces” (Fitch et al. 2005, p. 179; see also Davidson2003). Strictly speaking, while some ornaments may indeed be representative of certainlinguistic process, they are not necessarily so (Coolidge and Overmann 2012, p. 204).Similarly, the fact that beads and other ornaments could have been used as countingdevices does not constitute definitive proof of the linguistic value of these items. Forinstance, as Coolidge and Overmann have recently pointed out, “because it seemspossible to have number concepts without any linguistic terms for them—that is, it ispossible to quantify, count, and use number concepts for which there are no spokenterms or written symbols—it therefore appears possible that number concepts many beindependent of language” (Coolidge and Overmann 2012, p. 204). In other words, thehuman ability to evaluate basic quantities may be independent of language. As theseexamples illustrate, the ‘linguistic’ value of prehistoric personal ornaments needsfurther corroboration.

The third issue is related to the use of ethnographic parallels to interpret Palaeolithicornaments. As we have seen in this paper, more often than not, the role of Palaeolithicornaments in prehistoric societies is inferred from a number of ethnographic examples.However, for some time, authors have revealed the problems related to the use ofethnographic analogies in archaeology (e.g. Orme 1974; Wylie 1985). In particular,they have argued that archaeologists cannot assume that prehistoric groups used certainitems in the same way in which modern small-scale societies employ similar objects.As a result of these critiques, there is now a broad consensus that, at the very least,arguments by analogy cannot be reduced ‘to simple assimilation of the unfamiliar to thefamiliar’ (Wylie 1985, p. 107). The debate about ethnographic analogies has importantimplications for current discussions on personal ornaments. For instance, Wynn and


Coolidge have recently argued that “with few exceptions, archaeologists who advocatesymbolic culture as the litmus test for modernity either do not invoke cognition or donot specify the cognitive structures that enable symbolic culture” (Wynn and Coolidge2007, p. 88). Instead, the symbolism of certain objects is taken for granted in the lightof modern anthropological evidence (Wynn and Coolidge 2007, p. 87). In other words,the symbolic values of personal ornaments are often presumed before being empiricallydemonstrated. In making such assumptions, archaeologists run the risk of falling into“tautological arguments” (Wynn and Coolidge 2007, p. 88) or what Clark called the“vicious circle of assuming what one is trying to discover” (Clark 1951, p. 52). Toavoid such risk, it is important to remember that questions related to the meaning ofpersonal ornamentation can eventually be answered, not by attempts to apply directanalogical inference to these objects, but by exploring more fully the conditions underwhich analogical inference can be applied for the interpretation of body ornaments. Inshort, ethnographic analogies can only be considered as more or less plausible modelsthat need to be tested against the archaeological record.

In conclusion, a historical perspective on the study of Palaeolithic ornaments hasallowed us to document a transition in the ways in which these ornaments have beenconceptualized by archaeologists over the past 150 years. Historically, their importancewas limited to discussions of aesthetics, religious beliefs and the dynamics of social andeconomic networks. In recent years, however, ornaments have come to be seen asprivileged items for examining questions such as hominin cognition, prehistoric sym-bolism and Palaeolithic art. This change in our understanding of the heuristic value ofPalaeolithic ornaments is the result of developments in theoretical perspectives bothinside and outside anthropology as well as innovations in technology. As we have seen,this transformation has brought with it a number of terminological, conceptual andinterpretative challenges that, going forward, archaeologists will have to meet. Apositive approach to historiography might set up foundations for a more interestingdiscussion of these challenges.

Acknowledgments Research for this paper was supported by the Memorial University of Newfoundland(Canada), the University of Victoria (Canada) and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (France).We are grateful to those colleagues who offer assistance with our research on personal ornamentations,including Manuel R. González Morales, Randall White, Rudolph Botha, Jean Clottes, Margaret Conkey and,especially, Iain Davidson. The final version of the paper has greatly benefited from the critical comments ofthe editors of the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory and two anonymous reviewers.

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Palaeolithic Personal Ornaments: Historical Development and Epistemological Challenges

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