270,000 Crafted Beads Help Tell Story of High-Status Women 5,000 Years Ago

More than 270,000 expertly crafted beads recovered from a tomb in southern Spain provide valuable insights into the social status of women on the Iberian Peninsula 5,000 years ago.

Researchers believe the white shell beads were strung onto linen and made into ceremonial dresses and skirts, which were further ornamented with rare ivory and amber pendants shaped like acorns and birds.

The artifacts reflect a sophisticated social structure, where jewelry adornments likely reinforced an individual’s power and status. The find is reportedly the most extensive single-burial bead assemblage ever recorded.

“Under the sun, the effect of these women with the attires glittering with reflected sunlight must have been quite powerful,” researchers wrote in a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

A multidisciplinary research team from various Spanish institutions discovered the human remains, along with the jewelry, at the Tholos de Montelirio burial site, near Seville.

The cache of Cheerio-like beads weighed a total of 33 pounds (15 kilograms) and had to be cleared of all dirt and debris — a process that took seven specialists 651 hours to complete. An analysis of the material wedged in the hole of the beads revealed the presence of flax, a plant used to make linen textiles.

The newly discovered tomb, which was actively used as a burial site between 2875 BC and 2635 BC, contained 20 skeletons, at least 15 of which were identified as women — all between 18 and 34 years old when they died. The gender of the other skeletons could not be determined.

Researchers estimated the vast amount of labor required to produce more than a quarter of a million meticulously crafted beads.

“Ten persons working eight hours a day would have taken 206 days (nearly seven months) to produce the whole assemblage, using in the process a little less than a metric ton of marine shell,” they wrote. “Evidently, the labor value of the beaded attires was high.”

The scientists based their estimate on their own efforts to craft a bead from a scallop shell. Using rudimentary tools, it took one researcher 55 minutes to fabricate a single bead. They reasoned that an experienced Copper Age artisan could have completed the same task in 11 minutes.

“I think that the efforts to produce these beaded robes far exceed those required to produce a couture red carpet garment today,” researcher Marta Díaz-Guardamino told CNN. “You would need many more hours and people invested in the production of the beads. Indeed, it would have been, altogether, an enterprise on a whole different scale with no parallels in the world yet.”

Credits: Top photo by Antonio Acedo García, courtesy of Research Group ATLAS, University of Seville. Beads close-up photo by David W. Wheatley, courtesy of Research Group ATLAS, University of Seville.