ArticlePloS one2023
Plant-based red colouration of shell beads 15,000 years ago in Kebara Cave, Mount Carmel (Israel).
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Modeling identities among the first-sedentary communities: Emergence of clay personal ornaments in Epipaleolithic Southwest Asia.Science advances · 2026Article
- A 12,000-year-old clay figurine of a woman and a goose marks symbolic innovations in Southwest Asia.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Direct evidence for processing Isatis tinctoria L., a non-nutritional plant, 32-34,000 years ago.PloS one · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Decorating the living space, objects, body and clothes with colour is a widespread human practice. While the habitual use of red mineral pigments (such as iron-oxide, e.g., ochre) by anatomically modern humans started in Africa about 140,000 years ago, the earliest documentation of the use of organic plant or animal-based red pigments is known from only 6,000 years ago. Here, we report the oldest reliable evidence of organic red pigment use 15,000 years ago by the first sedentary hunter-gatherers in the Levant. SEM-EDS and Raman Spectroscopy analyses of 10 red-stained shell beads enabled us to detect and describe the use of a colourant made of Rubiaceae plants roots (Rubia spp., Asperula spp., Gallium spp.) to colour personal adornments from the Early Natufian of Kebara cave, Mount Carmel, Israel. This adds a previously unknown behavioural aspect of Natufian societies, namely a well-established tradition of non-dietary plant processing at the beginning of the sedentary lifestyle. Through a combined multidisciplinary approach, our study broadens the perspectives on the ornamental practices and the chaînes opératoires of pigmenting materials during a crucial period in human history.
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