Archaeologica.org

Useless but Shiny: Israeli Archaeologists Find 300,000-year-old Trove of Pretty Pebbles

Some of the stones are round and white, resembling bird eggs. Others are scarlet red like a living piece of flesh. Others yet are shiny and multicolored, crisscrossed by translucent mineral veins. The one thing these pretty pebbles found in the prehistoric site of Qesem in central Israel have in common is that they have no apparent use, and their presence has bedeviled researchers for nearly a decade.
Red but non-utile pebbles found at the prehistoric site of Qesem cave, central Israel Pavel Shrago

Now archaeologists have concluded that these 17 stones were collected by prehistoric hominins 300,000 years ago simply for their aesthetic value: that is, because they were pretty to the eye of the beholding caveman or cavewoman. Fact is, we all like a pretty stone and it seems, so did the early humans