After a new curator took over the The Krapina Neanderthal Museum in Croatia, David Frayer, a professor emeritus at the University of Kansas, was contacted to examine a previously overlooked collection of eight eagle talons that led him to a sudden epiphany.
The recent study took a look at cut marks on the 130,000 year-old eagle talons that provides evidence that Neanderthals crafted jewelry.
“I almost fell off my chair because they were so clearly modified by humans,” Frayer told Central Standard host Gina Kaufmann. “The more we study them, the more it’s clear they were assembled in some kind of jewelry item.”
The discovery suggests that Neanderthals not only had the brain power to craft jewelry but also to hunt and catch eagles as well.
Frayer believes oversight of the talons is likely due to a common misconception that Neanderthals lacked the intelligence necessary to find their way back to the last cave they slept in, let alone to create aesthetic jewelry.
“It was surprising to some others in the field who think of Neanderthals as the Geico Neanderthal and not the Neanderthal who has modern-like abilities,” said Frayer. “They were burying their dead. They were putting offerings in some of the graves.”
One notable characteristic of the necklace is that it consisted of talons taken from at least three separate eagles. Frayer points out that this uneasy feat symbolized some form of prestige for the wearer.
“They must have conveyed some sort of power to the person who was wearing them,” said Frayer, “I’m sure they weren’t just worn by anybody, just because of the difficulty of getting the birds and getting the claws.”
Coy Dugger is an intern for KCUR's Central Standard.