Abstract
The innovation of artificial materials marks a pivotal advancement in human technology. However, direct evidence of their earliest symbolic application remains scarce. In this paper, two tubular ceramic beads were studied, approximately 10,000-year-old, from the Nanzhuangtou site in North China. These beads represent among the earliest known ornaments made from a fully synthetic material, with their age constrained to approximately 10,000 cal BP through stratigraphic association with directly dated materials. A multi-analytical approach was employed, incorporating X-ray fluorescence, high-resolution micro-computed tomography, scanning electron and optical microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. This approach was used to demonstrate that the beads were fabricated from locally sourced clay. They were formed around a plant stem to create a hollow structure, and were fired at low temperatures (around 500–600℃). Their morphological attributes strongly suggest that they were used as personal adornments. This discovery provides crucial empirical evidence that nascent pottery technology was used for symbolic expression during the critical Palaeolithic-Neolithic transition, thus extending the known chronology of the decorative use of synthetic materials by millennia.
Data availability
All the analytical data gathered during the study are fully reported in this paper.
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Funding
This work is supported by the special project “Study on the Transition Pattern of the Palaeolithic–Neolithic Period in Northern North China” under the “Study on Major Historical Issues” of the Chinese Academy of History, The National Social Science Fund of China (23VLS005).
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Jianxiang Chen and Jingfang Zhao are co-first authors who contributed equally to this work. They designed the research and wrote the paper. Jianxiang Chen performed the experiments. Jingfang Zhao is the corresponding author. Jun Li, Wenrui Zhang and Xueyan Ren provided samples. Kai Wang provided guidance on the experimental design. Wanli Zhao and Wen Gao contributed to the discovery of the samples.
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Permission was obtained from the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology for the collection and analysis of the ceramic beads used in this study.
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Chen, J., Zhao, J., Li, J. et al. The earliest known ceramic beads as adornment from Nanzhuangtou site in North China 10,000 years ago. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-47203-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-47203-4
