The desire for personal adornment is natural place for the concept of jewellery to evolve from. Why was it worn in life, for ritual or everyday use or only in burial? And Why was is made and worn at all? We are then still left with the questions of jewellery's function in ancient cultures. We can also compare burial objects to those found outside of burials, which are few in ratio to those found in burials. From this we can make comparisons and educated guesses on the uses of jewellery through other sources left by the culture, like literature, sculptures, and illustrated murals. This source is initially a biased insight into the life of a culture as we can only assume that there must be similarities to the jewellery of burials and those of everyday adornment. The objects that have been found are generally excavated from burial sites.

When viewing jewellery from ancient cultures, we are getting only a small glimpse into the values and ways of life of people and places that preceded our own experience. We can make assumptions about the uses and purposes of jewellery in pre-historic cultures by making reference and comparing similarities to the functions of jewellery that we do understand from historic and contemporary times. The use of shell beads, for example, have been compared to a vaginal shape, and some feminist historian believe that the shell beads we find may have been worn as a fertility symbol. We can only assume that beads and pendants found from this era, may have been worn for similar symbolic reasons.

Carvings like this appear throughout pre-historic times, and we can guess that they must have been an important figure, possibly symbolizing fertility and bringing good fortune to their owners. From this, we can guess that obesity was sought after as a sign of health and prosperity because this meant she had enough food and resources to take care of herself and to raise offspring. Her features are exaggeratedly over weight, emphasizing her fertility and ample access to food. For example, the stone carving “Venus of Willendorf” depicts a voluptuous female figure. The imagery in these give us more insight into the values and practices of these Paleolithic and Neolithic people. We also find carved sculptures and cave paintings. We find beads, pendants, pins, and many types of tools (like needles, fish hooks, and axes) dating to pre-historic times. We find lots of beads made from many kinds of materials, commonly shell, stone, bone, and teeth, but we can only guess why they were making them. For example, objects with holes carved through them are often categorized as beads and thought of as jewellery, but we don't know for sure how they were intended to be used, worn, and what their purpose was. Objects found that date back to Paleolithic and Neolithic eras can be difficult to define as jewellery or not. It is difficult to know for sure what the intent and functions of jewellery in pre-historic times were. It is difficult to define and quantify the functions of pre-historic jewellery because there is no written record from the people of that time. Written by Chayle Cook F or NSCAD University seminar 'Jewellery of Ancient Cultures' 2010.

Findings jewelry function