82,000-year-old decorative shells found in Moroccan cave

[Wayne Harrison]

RABAT: The oldest decorative seashells ever found - dating back 82,000 years - have been discovered in a Moroccan cave, a local expert said on Tuesday.

They were found near Berkane in the east of the country, Abdeljalil Bouzouggar, a researcher at the Moroccan Institute of Archaeology, told AFP.

He said until recently no such shell decorations older than 50,000 years were thought to exist in Africa, though in 2002 the discovery of perforated shells dating back 75,000 years in South Africa had “shaken” that view.

“In 2003 in Morocco we first discovered a single perforated shell, but we worked for four years to arrive at a dozen of the Nassarius gibbolosus (seashell) type,” he said.

Bouzouggar headed an international team of experts working with Nick Barton, a researcher from Oxford University in England, at the Pigeons’ Cave at Taforalt, 20 kilometres from Berkane. He said the team had used four different dating systems which had given the same result, an age around 82,500 years.