Dr. Genevieve von Petzinger

Okay, so what matters again here for viewers and listeners is

we sort of have like a mental checklist we go through, which is first of all, is this even an actual external made mark or is this like a natural crack in something?

Okay.

And so once we're like, oh, okay, it appears to be a purposeful mark.

The next question is, is there some functional reason they might've been doing it?

Like trying to cut,

the clam out of the shell or, you know, cut meat off a bone.

Is that why there's marks on this bone is because they were butchering it, right?

Once we've ascertained it's not for those utilitarian functional reasons, then we get to, okay, we have a purposeful mark.

It wasn't being done for typical food function utilitarian reasons.

So we think there must have been some other meaning or purpose, even if we're not sure what it is.

And so this is what makes that shell so exciting is it's currently the oldest known example of something that is absolutely intentional, made with a tool, but serves no practical purpose.

Wow.

Now, that doesn't mean it's not important for some other reason, but it's not your food, shelter, warmth, right?

So that's what makes it such a key piece.

Though in more recent years, there are just like smatters around the globe.

And again, I wonder how much is that, you know, like when people have gone back to sites and revisited things, they find artifacts sometimes that had marks that they just earlier generations had presumed it was not there and therefore had not looked, if that makes any sense.

Absolutely.

So just to set the stage here, which is that we...

El Castillo is from, it's a big cave, like a big, it's one of the other show caves, honestly.