540,000-year-old shell carvings may be human ancestor's oldest art

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The ancient, big-bodied relatives of modern-day humans not only ate freshwater shellfish, but engraved their shells and used them as tools, a new study finds.

Researchers in Java, Indonesia, discovered engravings on a shell that dates to between 540,000 and 430,000 years ago. The ancient artwork could be the oldest known geometric carving made by a human ancestor, the researchers said.

It's unclear what the engraving a series of slashes and an "M"-shaped zigzag means, but it could indicate that Homo erectus, the ancestor of modern humans, may have been smarter than was previously thought. [See photos of the ancient mollusk shells from Indonesia]

"We as humans tend to be a bit species-centric we think we are so great and they must have been a bit more stupid than us, but I'm not sure," said the study's lead researcher, Josephine Joordens, a postdoctorial researcher of archaeology at Leiden University, in the Netherlands. "We need to appreciate the capacities of our ancestors a bit more."

Shell study

The researchers studied 166 shells that were excavated in Java in the 1890s but are now stored at the Naturalis museum in the Netherlands. One of the shells has a smooth and polished edge, suggesting it may have been used as a tool for cutting or scraping. Another shell, the one with the engraving, was likely carved with a sharp object, such as a shark tooth, the researchers said.

At the time of its carving, the shell likely had a dark covering, and the marks would have appeared as white lines, Joordens said. Her team tried to engrave present-day freshwater shells and found the task difficult.

"You had to use a lot of strength in your hands," Joordens said. "You had to be precise to make those angles. [But] if you engrave that dark surface and the white appears, that must have been quite striking for Homo erectus."

Homo erectus is known to have used stone tools, but this is the first evidence that they also used shells as tools, Joordens said. In Java, researchers have found less evidence of stone tool use, and the new shell finding may explain why.

"Given that they don't seem to be using stone tools as much, it's very interesting to discover evidence suggesting strongly that they were using tools made out of another kind of material," said Pat Shipman, a retired adjunct professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved with the study. "That broadens what we know of their behavioral repertoire." [Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans]

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