'Ornament of dead child': Reconstruction of 9,000-year-old necklace reveals details

Archaeologists have reconstructed a 9,000-year-old necklace which was unearthed in 2018 with a grave of a child at an ancient settlement in the Middle East.

A well-constructed cist-type grave was discovered at Ba'ja, a Neolithic village (7,400–6,800 BCE) in a location that is now Jordan.

The child, believed to be eight-year-old, was buried in a fetal position underneath multiple grave layers and was covered with over 2,500 beads found on the chest and neck.

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An international team led by archaeologist Hala Alarashi from Côte d'Azur University in France said that based on the shape of the child's jaw, it was probably a girl.

A double perforated stone pendant and an engraved mother-of-pearl ring were also discovered among the concentration of beads.

In the study titled Threads of memory: Reviving the ornament of a dead child at the Neolithic village of Ba`ja (Jordan), published in the online journal PLOS One on Wednesday (August 2), experts described how they reconstructed the artefact.

The authors said that the reconstruction results exceeded their expectations as they revealed an imposing multi-row necklace of complex structure and attractive design.

The study's authors wrotethat "through multiple lines of evidence, we suggest that the necklace was created at Ba'ja, although significant parts of beads were made from exotic shells and stones, including fossil amber".

The researchers have said that the ornament indicates that the child had significant social status.

The authors said the "abundance of beads composing the necklace, which is a common trait of ornaments found in other burials at Ba'ja, hints at wealth and prosperity".

"Adornments with a large number of beads—over 2,500—are unprecedented among contemporary Neolithic villages in the Levant," the authors said.

According to the study, the retrieval of such an ornament from life and its attribution to a young dead child highlights the significant social status of this individual.

"Beyond the symbolic functions related to identity, the necklace is believed to have played a key role in performing the inhumation rituals, understood as a public event gathering families, relatives, and people from other villages," the study mentioned.

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