Homo erectus on Java was already using shells of freshwater mussels as tools half a million years ago, and as a 'canvas' for an engraving. The discovery of an engraved geometrical pattern on one of ...

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The oldest known shell to have been engraved by an early human has been uncovered in a Dutch museum collection, where it remained unnoticed since the 1930s. The ancient mollusc, originally discovered ...

A member of the now-extinct hominid species Homo erectus engraved a geometric design on a sea shell nearly half a million years ago, long before the earliest evidence of comparable etchings made by ...

The mussel shell found in Indonesia scratched with a zigzag believed made by Homo erectus, which would make it the oldest art (all photos courtesy Wim Lustenhouwer, VU University Amsterdam) The ...

Engravings discovered on a shell believed to be made by the earliest ancestors of human beings have been dated by scientists at almost 500,000 years old – more than four times older than any ...