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. 2021 Nov 25;11(1):22078.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-01221-6.

A 41,500 year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave (Poland)

Sahra Talamo  1   2 , Wioletta Nowaczewska  3 , Andrea Picin  4 , Antonino Vazzana  5 , Marcin Binkowski  6 , Marjolein D Bosch  4   7   8   9 , Silvia Cercatillo  10 , Marcin Diakowski  11 , Helen Fewlass  4 , Adrian Marciszak  12 , Dragana Paleček  10 , Michael P Richards  13 , Christina M Ryder  14 , Virginie Sinet-Mathiot  4 , Geoff M Smith  4 , Paweł Socha  12 , Matt Sponheimer  14   15 , Krzysztof Stefaniak  12 , Frido Welker  4   16 , Hanna Winter  17 , Andrzej Wiśniewski  11 , Marcin Żarski  17 , Stefano Benazzi  4   5 , Adam Nadachowski  18 , Jean-Jacques Hublin  4   19
Affiliations

A 41,500 year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave (Poland)

Sahra Talamo et al. Sci Rep. .

Erratum in

  • Author Correction: A 41,500 year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave (Poland).
    Talamo S, Nowaczewska W, Picin A, Vazzana A, Binkowski M, Bosch MD, Cercatillo S, Diakowski M, Fewlass H, Marciszak A, Paleček D, Richards MP, Ryder CM, Sinet-Mathiot V, Smith GM, Socha P, Sponheimer M, Stefaniak K, Welker F, Winter H, Wiśniewski A, Żarski M, Benazzi S, Nadachowski A, Hublin JJ. Talamo S, et al. Sci Rep. 2022 Feb 1;12(1):2000. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-06348-8. Sci Rep. 2022. PMID: 35105923 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Abstract

Evidence of mobiliary art and body augmentation are associated with the cultural innovations introduced by Homo sapiens at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. Here, we report the discovery of the oldest known human-modified punctate ornament, a decorated ivory pendant from the Paleolithic layers at Stajnia Cave in Poland. We describe the features of this unique piece, as well as the stratigraphic context and the details of its chronometric dating. The Stajnia Cave plate is a personal 'jewellery' object that was created 41,500 calendar years ago (directly radiocarbon dated). It is the oldest known of its kind in Eurasia and it establishes a new starting date for a tradition directly connected to the spread of modern Homo sapiens in Europe.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Stajnia pendant and location of the site. (A) Site location in southern Poland ( modified from https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Geografia_Polski#/media/Plik:Physical_map_of_Poland.png, CC BY-SA 4.0) and aerial picture of Stajnia Cave; (B) Dorsal and ventral views of the pendant (S23100, S22222). Scale bar is 1 cm. (C) Schematic representation of the pendant (dorsal view). Numbers 1 to 50 indicate clearly identifiable punctuations; dotted lines indicate possible punctuations. The red hatch indicates the exfoliated area. Scale bar is 1 cm.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Stajnia pendant reconstruction. Views of the virtually reconstructed pendant and photomicrographs documenting the technology used for their manufacture: multiple examples of punctures (A,C–E) and traces of smoothing (B,G). A longitudinal section through perforations is shown in (B). Scale bar is 1 cm.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Stajnia awl. (A) Original picture of the awl from Stajnia Cave; (B) Reconstructed 3D digital models of the awl. Scale bars are 1 cm.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Map of the geographical distribution of the sites where punctuated ornaments and objects have been found. (A) Map of the geographical distribution of the sites where punctuated ornaments and objects with punctate decoration have been found in Aurignacian and Early Upper Palaeolithic contexts (1 Tuto de Camalhot, 2 Abri Blanchard / Abri Castanet, 3 Abri la Souquette, 4 Abri Lartet, 5 Geißenklösterle, 6 Vogelherd, 7 Sungir, 8 Yana); (B) Chronological comparison of Stajnia pendant and awl (calibrated ranges) with other artistic punctate ornaments found in Upper Palaeolithic sites (modelled ranges). The horizontal bars show the calibrated ranges of direct dates of the awl in blue and of the pendant in pink cross-hatched. From the other sites, the age range of the layers where punctate ornaments have been found are pink cross-hatched bars and are the modelled date ranges produced using the 'date' command in OxCal (See Table S14). The red asterisk close to the name of the sites indicates a 'hypothetical' boundary imposed by the Bayesian model due to a very low agreement index for Vogelherd and just two samples out of context for Tuto de Camalhot. All the bars represent 68.3% probability.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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