THE SEA, SO CLOSE AND SO FAR AWAY

Marine shells...

Human groups have been using and transforming shells for personal use and other everyday needs since very early on.
The only species documented at Lagar Velho so far is the flat periwinkle (Littorina obtusata), a sea snail, deliberately pierced, found next to the child burial and in the shelter's most recent occupation levels.
It is not possible to reliably determine whether these pendants might have been personal ornaments (beads from a necklace or bracelet, for example) or part of clothing items, but their intentional transformation leaves no room for doubt.
Pierced Littorina shells occur in various Upper Palaeolithic archaeological contexts all over Europe, especially during the Gravettian and Solutrean periods, which are represented at Lagar Velho. The selection of this particular species, among so many others available from the sea, must have had a meaning - that still eludes us today - for the human groups that occupied quite diverse geographical areas of the European continent at the same time.