Fine Jewelry from Animal Teeth to Precious Materials

It all began back in the Stone Age with Neanderthals in caves making body ornaments out of animal teeth and shells. Why? To communicate. To say something to someone about something. So we call jewelry the original communication medium. Born at the dawn of human social behavior.

That was about 100,000 years ago. About 60,000 years later, the Cro-Magnons advanced the state of the art by using teeth, bone and stone.

Little did the caveman know that their idea of decorating the body with animal-sourced and other natural materials would unleash an avalanche of innovation cascading down through the millennia into many dimensions of human life. Initially driving the beginnings of social communications and behavior, then finally spawning an ever-burgeoning industry, jewelry has played a greater role than most of us stop to ponder when we hit the fine jewelry stores online or offline.

The leap from crude Cro-Magnon jewelry of some 40,000 years ago to established jewelry making and the use of precious materials occurred between 3,000 and 5,000 years back. And amazingly, different cultures all over the world took the same leap in the same time period without the benefits of worldwide connectivity that we have today. Poor things had no telephones, no World Wide Web, no Internet, no communications satellites, nothing. So without all those luxuries, maybe it’s just that the human brain was evolving from duhhh to creative thinking at about the same pace regardless of culture or geography.

In North America, Native Americans were busily making jewelry out of turquoise gemstones and oyster shells. These materials were concentrated abundantly in limited regions, so as body ornaments became popular, the beginnings of trade in designer fine jewelry unfolded in North America.

In Central America, the Aztecs and Mayans created spectacular fine gold jewelry and fine silver jewelry from their rich sources of those materials. But the Mayans in particular added copper, bronze and jade to their jewelry-making portfolio. The only people allowed to wear jewelry were the merchants and people of nobility. The idea was to advertise one’s high status, but jewelry was also used in sacrificial and religious ceremonies.

Across the pond, the Egyptians specialized in fine gold jewelry and they ran large workshops that were part of palaces and temples. Different colors had specific meanings to the Egyptians, so they preferred glass over gemstones because they could control the color of glass. Green, for example, meant abundance. Here again we see that jewelry was an important communication medium. You wore it to say something about yourself. No wonder Queen Cleopatra preferred emeralds.

In Europe, the Greeks were using gold and precious gems including emerald, amethyst and pearl. In addition it seems they were the originators of cameos carved from an agate stone. Ancient Grecian jewelry was simple in design and not worn very often, but it did have certain meanings. In addition to advertising wealth and status, jewelry was worn to protect one from the “Evil Eye” of others, or to provide the wearer with supernatural powers, or to convey some religious message.

Italy’s beginnings in fine jewelry were manifest in crude fine jewelry bracelets, necklaces, earrings and clasps. The clasps prevailed as they were used to fasten clothing together. The Italians also used bronze, glass beads, bone and pearl. Again, jewelry was worn to defend the wearer from the “Evil Eye” of other people. Women wore lots of jewelry, and some men flaunted a ring on every finger.

In the Middle East, the Mesopotamians had a busy bunch of fine jewelry designers, makers and traders in their midst as early as about 2000 B.C. (Mesopotamia is now Iraq, Syria, Southeast Turkey and Southwest Iran.) Working with gold, silver, semi-precious stones and advanced techniques, they fashioned avalanches of chokers, multi-strand necklaces, ankle bracelets, amulets, pins, crowns and you-name-it. And in some places, both men and women boldly wore it to the nth. Jewelry was even used on statues.

Right around the corner was the Indus Valley Civilization of India. These people were among the first to approach jewelry making as an art some 5,000 years ago. Beads prevailed and women were the biggest fans, but some men were flashy enough to wear beads also. The literature shows that the bead trade was quite robust. Bead makers would buy raw stones from Eastern stone traders and heat them in ovens until they turned bright red because red was revered in Indus Valley. The bead makers would break the stone into bead-size pieces, drill holes in the pieces and polish them as finished beads. After beads came Indian jewelry made of precious metals and gems. And in 296 B.C., India was the first to recognize the value of diamonds and thus to actually mine them. This triggered a fine diamond jewelry trade that lasted for 1,000 years until the Christians rejected diamonds for religious reasons and the Arabs brought it all to a halt by restricting trade.

China was another one of the first to get involved in jewelry as a serious industry. Starting about 5,000 years ago, the Chinese began working mostly with silver and jade. India had beat them to the punch in the fine diamond jewelry department, because the Chinese thought diamonds were meant for use as cutting tools for their jade. On the other hand, the Chinese were hundreds of years ahead of Western cultures in the fabrication department, as they developed compound milling machines sometime between the 4th And 7th centuries B.C. This allowed them to create more sophisticated designs in jade, which the Chinese prize as a symbol of durability, hardness and beauty. The most prevalent designs involved religious symbols, Buddhas and dragons. The earring was most popular form of jewelry, and it was worn by both women and men.

So now that you’re read the short version of a very long story behind jewelry, let’s go find some fabulous fine jewelry online!