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Pierced sea-snail shells worn as beads at Bizmoune Cave in Morocco, at least 142,000 years ago: the oldest known personal ornaments, signs of who a person is, made for other people to read.
The mechanism
A MARK FOR OTHER MINDS
How it was checked
- EvidenceT6 PHYSICAL / OBSERVATION; Status: ADDED 2026-09-19
- Letter eraTHE DECLARATION AND THE DEEP RECORD the awakening to Babel: dated by ruling and by the record, placed by story where the text gives no date
- SourcesARCHAEOLOGY — Sehasseh et al., Science Advances 7:eabi8620 (2021)
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