Spondylus gaederopus
Lazarus rattle ( Spondylus gaederopus )
The Lazarus rattle ( Spondylus gaederopus ) is an edible, belonging to the sting oyster mussel which occurs and the adjacent Atlantic Ocean in the Black Sea, in the Mediterranean.
Description
The ungleichklappige, purple - reddish shell is arranged with irregular, occupied long, flat spines and 60 to 125 mm long. She lives from shallow waters to 50 m depth to bedrock. The colonies of the once very frequent type erupted at the beginning of the 1980s an unknown reason.
Use and meaning in archeology
In the Neolithic their shells were made into jewelery and negotiated over long distances. In part, the thesis was represented, be it mainly fossil Spondylen been processed. However, the analysis of strontium isotopes indicates use of recent shells. In order to determine their origin, very early oxygen isotopes have been investigated that point to the Black Sea, which also corresponds to the frequency distribution of archaeological finds. The finds also be viewed as evidence of the flooding of the Black Sea
Jewelry made of Spondylus found in:
- Band ceramic culture
- Rössen culture
- Moravian- painted ceramics ( MBK )
- Vinca culture
- Tisza Culture
- Bodrogkeresztur culture
- Gumelniţa culture
- KGK VI
Workshops where Spondylusschalen been processed, are known from Dimini in Greece. In the band ceramic was prepared from Spondylus bracelets, belt buckles and pendants ago, they are mainly found in cemeteries, here are Aiterhofen / Ödmühle in Bavaria and Vedrovice to call in Moravia. In Greece, Spondylus jewelry since the Middle Neolithic, increasingly known from the Spätneolilithikum.
Locations:
- Dispilio ( Kastoria prefecture )
- Alepotrypa Mani Cave
- Franchthi, Argolis
A special feature is the discovery of a copy of Spondylus gaederopus in the Cueva de los Aviones, a limestone cave on the outskirts of Cartagena in Spain, which was published in 2010. On the inside of their 50,000 year old shell pigment residues were detected from hematite, which - were interpreted as the first discovered in Europe evidence of colored jewelery in Neanderthals - along with other pigment discoveries in this cave.