Locally found Cowrie Shells were the first recorded currency used on the continent of Africa, dating from many thousands of years ago. These pages contain various Shell
and Bone items, both used in antiquity and for their present day decorative purposes.
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The latest finds are of 13 shell beads in the Grottes des Pigeons, a Middle Palaeolithic rock-shelter located in eastern Morocco containing a 10 meter thick deposit of archaeological occupations that have been excavated several times since its discovery in 1908. They were found in a layer dated to 82,000 years ago. Evidence from the beads themselves indicates they were collected as dead shells, carried over 40 kilometres, perforated so that they could be worn and coloured with some kind of ochre stain. These beads are the oldest explicitly symbolic artefacts recovered to date and are the same type as the slightly later beads recovered from the Howiesons Poort assemblages at Blombos Cave in South Africa. Information source

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