Paleolithic Beads Discovered in China

News October 31, 2017

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YINCHUAN, CHINA—According to a Xinhua News Agency report, archaeologists have found a total of four tiny beads estimated to be between 8,000 and 12,000 years old by sifting and washing tens of thousands of cubic feet of dirt removed from a site in northwest China. The smallest bead, crafted from eggshell, measures just 0.05 inches in diameter. “It is incredible that it can be so well processed with such a small diameter,” said Wang Huimin of the Ningxia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, and the Qingtongxia’s Cultural Relics Administration, also participated in the project. To read more about Paleolithic beadwork, go to "In Style in the Stone Age." 

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