Since ancient times, why do people wear jewelry?

From expensive jewelry and shoes to "luxury" watches, who doesn't like a little "sparkle"?

The obsession with decorating yourself is not just a trivial activity. Many archaeological evidence shows that wearing jewelry plays a significant role in making us become human like today.

Why is jewelry important?

Why do we spend so much money on taking care of ourselves? In short, it is because we use that expensive item to communicate with others.

For example, look at the engagement ring. A popular concept in many countries is that, a sparkling ring on the ring finger of the left hand is the wearer is engaged and ready to marry. So that ring sent a specific message.

But how different is this "full of art" behavior with other actions that we humans do?

According to Newsweek, the short answer lies in human abstract thinking .

The reason we wear jewelry lies in human abstract thinking.

Blue birds and puffer fish are all focused on attracting partners. Their message is simple: "I am here and I am healthy". There is no conversation about how they send messages - they are just . just like that.

Meanwhile our message - the message sent through expensive items - is programmed using pre-agreed symbols (like a diamond ring) to represent something (engaged and getting married).

The process of human consensus that something can represent something completely different, is what makes us human. And jewelry has been the center of this element for hundreds of thousands of years.

Decorate your body, open your heart

For archaeologists, finding body jewelry is the closest thing to understanding ancient thought. Their first appearance in the archaeological record will tell us when human thinking becomes complex enough to be aware of personal characteristics.

At first humans lived in small groups scattered throughout the Earth. Everyone knows each other, and interacting with strangers is very rare.

Finding jewelry on the body is the closest thing to understanding ancient thought.

However, as the population grows, society becomes more complicated and not everyone we know. That means we need to tell others who we are.

So we begin to climb up certain things to send a message about each individual self (presence, marital status, leader, healer) and the groups that link to us. .

The use of these body ornaments allows people to continue to expand their communities, leading to more complex behaviors and thoughts.

Starting from self-painting

The earliest evidence of this decoration is the red pigments - made from loess soil - used by modern people (Homo Sapien people) to paint their bodies from 285,000 years ago in Africa.

The earliest evidence of this decoration is self-painting.

Interestingly, it shows that not long after (about 250,000 years ago), Neanderthals did the same thing in Europe.

However, body paint does not last long - when you bathe, it rains or simply because it passes away. It has a limited time to exist.

Beads, beads with lots of beads

On the other hand, jewelry beads can exist for generations . The ability to use and reuse is significantly longer than the time and effort to create them - and so, at least 100,000 years ago, people gradually realized the advantages of these beads.

Around that time, people in Africa and Israel searched for white shells called Nassarius, punched through its surface so they could be threaded and used alongside red paint. body.

Jewelry beads can exist for generations.

It is no coincidence that the first jewelry beads were made from shells: they have the shape we like (round), the color we like (white, cream, black) and shiny (this is What we especially like). Small shells are also very hard, able to withstand abrasion or fall (very useful).

Moreover, they can be worn in a multitude of different ways - allowing us to transmit many different messages.

Soon after, we found other bright and shiny materials (such as bones, teeth, ivory, deer antlers, stones) to make new decorations and convey more messages.

Decorated with ink

But what's more durable than decorative beads? Insert ink into the dermis of the skin - also known as tattooing.

Sculptures from Europe have shown that tattooing can be customary from at least 30,000 years ago, even though the only evidence of tattooing is now Tyrolean tape - or more commonly called Ötzi.

The tattoo on the arm of the Ötzi tapeman.

Considered the victim of an assassination attempt of 5,300 years ago, Ötzi had 61 different tattoos on him. At the same time were two Predynastic Egyptian mummies, and another mummy of a younger age, a Siberian princess 2,500 years ago.

Tattooing also has an impressive history throughout the Pacific.

Jewelry makes people

Because jewelry is tied to communication, archaeologists can follow not only the development of our minds, but also the development of society.

For us, the more jewels found by archaeologists, the more interactive it shows. Jewelry exchange shows us who is talking to, and new types of jewelry also reflect the changing circumstances.

All jewelry is valuable because it tells us something about the person who is wearing it.