1 6 JACKSON, Use of Cowry -shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 



As Dr. G. Elliot Smith has pointed out, 44 many 

 similarities exist between Magdalenian and the later 

 Azilian implements, and also of both of these to those 

 of Pre-dynastic Egypt. This suggests the possibility of 

 the Magdalenian period in the west being approximately 

 contemporaneous with the pre-dynastic period in Egypt, 

 and that the Neolithic period in Western Europe did not 

 begin long before the third millennium B.C. . 



In connection with the above it is of interest to note 

 that the cowry is frequently associated with pre-dynastic 

 burials in Egypt 



The numerous discoveries of cowries detailed above 

 serve to show the migrations or intercourse of early 

 peoples. They are not to be regarded as evidence of the 

 shells, even the smaller kind, having been employed as 

 currency in the localities where they were found, nor 

 indeed are they to be looked upon as having been worn 

 from purely aesthetic motives. Their presence may be 

 explained by the part cowries played in early times as 

 symbolic of the generative forces of nature. The shell 

 itself was not worshipped, but rather regarded as an 

 attribute of some goddess. It was due probably to this 

 fact that the cowry was known to the ancients under the 

 appellation of " Concha Venerea," — the shell of Venus. 45 

 As pointed out by Dr. J. C. Melvill, 46 the generic name of 



between the Lower and Upper Palaeolithic. The Lower Palaeolithic, he 

 suggests, may be known as the Palreanthropic, the Upper as the commence- 

 ment of the Neonnthropic, Age. (See " The American Museum Journal," 

 vol. xvi., May, 1916, p. 325.) 



44 Abstract of paper on " The Commencement of the Neolithic Pha:?e 

 of Culture,'' read before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 

 April 4th, 1916. 



43 As weil as the goddess of love, the word Venus signifies the highest 

 throw of the dice. (Horace, 'Carmina,' 2, 7, 25.) It is not surprising, 

 therefore, that we fin 1 the cowry— the shell of Venus, used in so many 

 games of chance. 



4G " Survey of Genus Cyproea," op. a'/., p. 184. 



