The idea of a revolution in human behaviour during the upper paleolithic era has been weakended once more with further finds of 'jewellery' dating back more than 75,000 years.

The old belief that there had been some sort of radical shift in behavour during the upper paleolithic (40-50,000 years ago) was based upon a lack of archaeological evidence of activities that we see in later humans. These activities included art, ornamentation and spiritualism.

It seems that absense of evidence was not evidence of absense after all, and the finds over the last decade show that these 'modern' activities have a much older lineage than we first thought.

This is to be welcomed by researchers who sought in vain for a reason for the revolution in behaviour occuring when there was no change in anatomy at the time. It now appears that the UP revolution was a figment of our collective imagination.

The latest example of ancient jewellery has be found in a cave in Israel. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5099104.stm