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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Science
David Keys

What a piece of 15,0000-year-old jewellery found in a Devon cave tells us about this prehistoric ‘civilization’

The Magdalenian seal-tooth pendant which scientists from University College London and the Natural History Museum have been studying - (Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London)

A piece of prehistoric jewellery, discovered in a West Country cave, is helping to shed new light on Stone Age Europe's most spectacular culture.

Known as the Magdalenian, that 21,000 to 13,000 year old prehistoric 'civilization' dominated much of Western Europe, particularly southwest France, northern Spain and parts of Britain and Germany for most of the final 10,000 years of the Ice Age. A detailed scientific analysis of the British Magdalenian jewellery item, carried out at University College London and the Natural History Museum, has now revealed that it was a polished pendant made from a seal's tooth.

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