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Archaeologists in Turkey have found ground-breaking evidence linking prehistoric facial expressions to the bodies of those who wore them.
Personal adornment – including items such as earrings which are thought to have been worn as piercings – has been documented among Neolithic or late Stone Age peoples in various parts of southwest Asia, with evidence as far back as 12,000 years ago. But none of the objects interpreted as holes were directly associated with body parts that may have been discarded.
Now, analysis of excavations at the Boncuklu Tarla archaeological site in southeastern Turkey has revealed burials in which piercing decorations were found located near the ears and mouths of the grave occupants. The dental wear on the lower incisors of these remains, about 11,000 years ago, resembled well-known wear patterns caused by scraping from a type of ornament called a labret, often worn below the lower lip.
This is the first time that facial piercings in Neolithic people from southwest Asia have been directly linked to the body parts they pierced, researchers reported Monday in the journal Antiquity. Their findings also confirm that the practice was already common in the early Neolithic period.
People of all ages were buried at Boncuklu Tarla, but the newly described ornaments were only found near the remains of adults. This suggests that these decorations were not worn by children, and the getting of these piercings may have been marked by coming-of-age rituals within social groups, according to the study.
There are several other types of evidence for coming-of-age rituals in the Neolithic, such as burials that fix the body with certain artifacts “or the placement of the deceased in specific places prescribed for a specific age group,” said anthropological archaeologist Dusan . Boric, associate professor at Sapienza Università di Roma in Italy, in an email.
“But I can’t think of many other examples as convincing as this one,” said Boric, who was not involved in the study.
‘unbelievable’ quantity
Boncuklu Tarla was occupied by hunter-gatherers from about 10,300 BC to 7100 BC, as people began to move away from a nomadic lifestyle and form settlements. The site was first excavated in 2012 and has since yielded a large number of decorative objects from the Neolithic period, with about 100,000 decorative artifacts found so far – a huge number, said study co-author Dr. Emma L. Baysal, associate professor in archeology at Ankara University in Turkey.
“The sheer volume is unbelievable. This is a site where there are people who love decoration, more than any other site,” Baysal told CNN. “They had masses and masses of beads and made intricate things out of beads,” including necklaces, bracelets, pendants in the shape of animals and decorations that could be sewn onto clothing, Baysal said.
They also made ornaments for ear and lip piercing. Labrets, which are still worn in some cultures in Amazonia and Africa, come in different forms: round, oblong and disc-shaped. Some are long and thin, but most have one end that is wider and flat, and vary in diameter and width.
The scientists identified 85 objects from the Boncuklu Tarla burials as ornaments thrown into holes, made of materials such as flint, limestone, copper and obsidian. The researchers classified the labrets into seven types, based on shape—all measured at least 0.3 inches (7 millimeters) in diameter, and the longest was just over 2 inches (50 millimeters) long.
Ornaments described as Type 1 had long, “nail-like” shafts and were likely worn “into the flesh or cartilage of the ear,” according to the study. Elongated Types 2, 4 and 6 were also thought to be ear ornaments. In comparison, labrets of Types 3 and 5 were shorter and more bulbous – better suited for lip wear. Type 7, a flattened disc, was also thought to be a type of labret.
Some of the labrets had been loosened from their original locations in the graves, possibly by rodents, although they were still near the head and neck area of the human remains. Still other pieces were “lodged in place on the upper or lower surface of the skull or under the lower skull,” the study authors reported.
Scientists have long thought that Neolithic objects called labrets were used as piercings, “especially for the mouth or the ear,” Dusan said.
“However, we now have incontrovertible and strong contextual evidence from the site of Boncuklu Tarla that such objects here and at other widely contemporary sites were indeed associated with these body parts as found in burials and that they were probably buried. the same way in life.”
‘Some sort of social status’
Although children were buried with pendants and beads, none had ear ornaments or labrets near their heads, necks or chests, indicating that facial piercings were reserved for adults, the researchers concluded.
“It probably has to do with being an adult,” Baysal said. “Perhaps a kind of social status related to age, or a particular role in society.”
For archaeologists working to piece together how prehistoric people presented themselves to each other and to outside groups, piercings and other forms of body decoration are “the best overall source of information we have about people in these periods, that until the writing is composed and people are expressing themselves directly,” said Baysal.
This type of personal expression may be rooted in the mythologies of traditional societies, Dusan said, which “contains a particular aspect of myths related to the origin of ornaments and body adornment, implying that the body is fundamentally important to decorate as an action that goes further. purely aesthetic concerns,” he said. “Perhaps wearing body decoration is an act of personality building and protection.”
More than tools or other artefacts of daily life, these decorations have a very accessible view of Neolithic people, as the human impulse to express identity or community through piercings and other personal adornment continues to the today.
“When you put on earrings, you can’t see the earrings you’re wearing. You are not doing it for yourself, because you cannot see them. It’s how you present yourself to others. And I don’t think that has changed in all these thousands of years,” Baysal said. “It’s a way for us to identify with people in the past and think, ‘Well, actually, they’re a lot like us'”
Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.
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