From the Dawn of Civilization, ancient cultures have been using jewelry to beautify and protect themselves.  Jewelry was used to display social rank or ownership, as well as enhance looks to attract a mate.  The earliest of jewelry was made of objects of Nature easily collected and gathered, such as bone, shell, and feathers.  As children, all cultures instinctively pick up eye-catching items, wind stems of flowers together, or put feathers into hair.  Throughout the ages, jewelry has become intricate works of art and self-expression.   The use of Mother Nature's bounty has symbolized abundance, fertility, freedom, strength and beauty.

NATURAL JEWELRY: History and Early Beginnings

Ancient Culture

In ancient culture, early jewelry would have merely been adornments.  Objects were set into hair, shards of bone were pierced through flesh.  Once humans entered the tool age, natural objects could be shaped, cut and strung.  Primary uses would have been self-enhancement, status, or ownership.

Females would have put objects into the hair to distinguish themselves from other females, increasing the chance of attracting a mate.  Males would hang tusks, claws, bones or arrowheads from their necks to symbolize their virility and superior hunting skills.  The larger the animal claw or tooth, the  greater their perceived strength and fierceness.  Feathers and animal hair were woven together to create animal-like headdresses.  Dances similar to animal mating rituals were often performed to attract and impress available females. Small pretty trinkets such as colorful shells could be given by males to females to physically show unavailability and ownership.

Primitive Culture

Early jewelry making techniques officially began in approximately 3000 BC.  Trade routes were established between North Africa, Europe, and the Near and Middle East.  Jewelry could be worn to identify an area, an occupation, or a social rank.

The Migration of Jewelry

The Sumerians in Mesopotamia, now modern Iraq, were regarded as the first jewelers.  Some of their techniques are still in use in modern jewelry making.  They were the first society to discover and use gold and silver for the making of jewelry.  They also mined natural minerals, semi-precious gems such as lapis lazuli and cornelian to set into their jewelry.

The people of Egypt were impressed and influenced by Sumerian jewelry.  The Egyptians, using skills learned by the Sumerians, developed their personal style of jewelry with an African flare.  They incorporated their Gods and hieroglyphic script into their jewelry.  They used precious metals with natural semi-precious stones and pearls collected from the Nile River.

The Phoenicians had a huge trading area that spanned the Mediterranean into Spain.  They were influenced by the Egyptians and created their own style of jewelry.

By 500 BC, Phoenician style jewelry reached Tuscany and Umbria.  The Etruscans elaborated on the Phoenician and Egyptian styles and techniques, creating a jewelry with phenomenal craftsmanship and expertise.  This culture is credited with perfecting granulation, or applying tiny beads of metal to metal .

Classical Jewelry

Greek Jewelry

By 350 BC, the Middle and Near East jewelry design was pretty uniform in appearance.  Ancient Greek culture dominated the area.  Gold was plentiful, and the art of filigree was used to make jewelry into intricate works of art.  The jewelry created was made to look like natural objects - leaves, branches, sprays of flowers, etc.  They incorporated their Gods, crescent moon shapes, leaf and key motifs.  They used natural glass, gemstones and minerals in every color of the rainbow.

Roman Jewelry

As Christianity spread, the Greek Gods stepped aside for more Christian motifs.  Roman style jewelry did carry on renditions of scrolling leaf and key patterns, adapted from previous Greek pieces, but they scrapped filigree work, and instead produced bold, smooth designs.  Roman jewelry began to decline in appeal around the 4th century AD.  At this time, pearls were discovered in the Red Sea, and elephant ivory was being imported from India and Africa.

By the 6th century AD, the people of Constantinople were fully mining Mother Earth's natural gemstones and metals.  Older styles of jewelry began to be re-incorporated, especially those of Persia and India.  Designs became much more intricate and complex, and the use of precious metals and natural gemstones increased greatly.

Medieval Jewelry

During the Crusades, jewelry of the Byzantine Empire and medieval Europe began to overlap due to the great area of the War.  Crusaders brought jewelry designs back to Europe from the far reaches of Africa and the Middle East.  Medieval jewelry used Earth's precious stones, and inscriptions became very popular.  Christian motifs and icons soared, and the religious cross came to the forefront.

Medieval jewelry with Christian motifs continued through the European Renaissance from the 14th to the 17th century.  However, the classic style of Greek and Roman jewelry began to reappear.

New World Jewelry

Spain was exploring and conquering in the New World in the 15th century, bringing incredible stashes of gold, silver and gemstones into Europe.  The European population embraced fashion and jewelry design, causing jewelry to be extremely desirable.  Jewelry of precious metals and gemstones became status symbols and outer proclamation of social superiority.  With resources being heavily mined, quality pieces began to be reserved for Royalty and the wealthy.  As the desire for self-beautification of the common-class of people soared, jewelry of less-expensive substitutions and non-precious materials soon were produced.  Though the term wasn't coined until the 1920's, non-precious "Costume Jewelry," was born.

Victorian Jewelry

The Victorian era was most noted for using Natural objects to create jewelry.  Most jewelry was made from tortoiseshell, bone, ivory, coral, tiger's teeth and claws, nuts, wood, insects and hair.  The Victorian era revived Egyptian design when the artifacts were revealed from the discoveries of Ancient tombs.

Modern Costume Jewelry

Since the Victorian era, the World has seen many styles and influences of jewelry, with revivals of certain styles.  The 1960's and 1970's particularly focused on Nature, causing jewelry made of nuts, wood, feathers and shells increasingly popular again.  This era is also noted for bringing Mexican and Native American Indian jewelry, with their natural mined minerals and gems, to greater popularity.

Nature's Semi-Precious Objects

Many cultures have little access to precious material, and their jewelry consists of simple natural objects.  Even cultures with access to precious gems and artisans, have opted to wear the bounty of Mother Nature as their way of self-expression.  Many cultures have folklore of the healing or protecting powers of certain items of nature.  Many jewelry collectors have chosen particular natural collections due to these qualities, or simply for their statement of Natural Beauty. 

FAUNA

Animals with specific anatomical characteristics are used in jewelry.  Quills resemble long, tubular beads of multiple colors.  Bear claws, some varieties now illegal, were once made into necklaces.  Tiger and zebra hide was made into earrings and brooches.  Mink has been made into earrings, brooches, button covers, and especially sweater guards.

Panamanian Porcupine Quill Earrings
with Carved Wood Swans & Dried Nuts 

Leather

One of the earliest forms of necklaces were the dried strands of animal hide.  Animal hides were dried, tanned, and were able to be stained using various berries or minerals.  Leather is worn by both men and women, and can be carved, cut, engraved, branded, studded and worked into lovely designs.

Leather Canadian Goose Brooch

Tortoiseshell

The shells of turtles have long been used to carve jewelry.  It can be easily carved, painted, and stained.  Used throughout time, but heavily used during the Victorian period. 

Hair

In the 1840's, hairwork, or jewelry made from human hair, became a popular fashion.  The hair was very tightly woven, arranged into pictures or florals, glued into place, and mounted into a pin.  Hair was also ground and dyed to make brooch portraits and paintings.

In the 1860's, during the War Between the States, hair jewelry became popular as love or friendship gifts for soldiers to remember someone from home.  The Civil War also caused hair jewelry to appear as common mourning pieces.

Horsehair was also woven into intricate rows for its durability.  It made fantastic bracelets and belts.  Due to the length of horses' manes and tails, larger and stronger pieces were able to be fashioned.    

Ivory

Ivory is probably the earliest form of jewelry, dating to Prehistoric times when early man would show his hunting skills by wearing a tooth of a ferocious animal, or piercing a part of his body with a needle-sharp shard of bone.  Ivory is a bit different than bone in that it has no blood vessel system, making it more dense.  Tribes of Africa wear Ivory for its Magical qualities.  Ivory is simply the tooth or tusk of an animal.  It can be carved into intricate designs.  Often, carved into inter-connecting designs.  Quite often seen with elephant motifs, it is illegal to buy, sell, or trade certain ivories in the United States.

Indian Carved Ivory Elephant Necklace

Feathers

Feathers have been used in jewelry making since ancient times.  Still used in tribal ceremonies on headdresses, feathers also are placed in the hair as jewelry and adornment.  Bright colored feathers are cut and used for brooches as realistic touches, or made into other forms of jewelry.

Beaded Peacock Feather Earrings

Insects

Many Ancient cultures had insect motifs as part of their designs.  The Victorian era, however, used actual lacquered insects for pendants, necklaces, and brooches.  They most commonly chose magnificently colored specimens, such as the fluorescent green moth.  This fascination of bug jewelry was partly due to the common interest of Natural History, and the theories and explorations of Charles Darwin.

Bug jewelry flew again in the plastics era.  Cicadas, flies, and other insects were set into lucite materials for pendants, brooches and bracelets.  See also Fossils/Amber below.

The Brazilian Butterfly, with its brilliantly colored wings, has been made into jewelry for ages.  The wings were made into brooches, sweater guards, pendants, and earrings.  Butterfly wing jewelry became very popular in the 1940's and 1950's.  The wings can lose their powdery iridescence, so some specimens are lacking lustre and color.

Butterfly Wings Brooch
with Painted Beach Scene

SEALIFE

Coral

Coral is simply the calcified skeletons of sea creatures.  It is composed primarily of calcium carbonate.  Coral forms in tree-like branches.  The bulk of modern coral is harvested from the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean near Japan and Tawain.  Coral was used in ancient cultures, being carved into scarabs for Egyptian jewelry.  Coral was thought to ward off evil.  It was a talisman against witchcraft and the Devil, and an amulet of protection given to babies as christening gifts.  It was often carved into beads for rosaries in Italy.  It was said that if coral lost its color, the wearer would become violently ill.

The Victorian era used coral so heavily from 1860-1870, that by the end of the nineteenth century, almost no jewelry was made from it.  Coral jewelry was eventually seen as tacky.  It had a short revival in the Art Deco 1920's and 1930's to compliment turquoise in Geometrical patterns.  It then saw another revival in the 1970's.

Coral was most widely used in its branch form, though this form of jewelry is valued no where near that of carved coral.  Coral is modernly used in Tribal jewelry and cameos.

Branched Coral Earrings

Fish

Natural sea creatures such as starfish and seahorses are often made into jewelry.  Small starfish and seahorses are dried and added to mother of pearl for pendants or earrings.  Common as beach souvenirs.  Sharks teeth are often made into men's tie clasps, or mounted into pendants for necklaces. 

Shells

Shells are among the first pieces of jewelry.  As the ocean is full of undiscovered creatures, the variety of shells and jewelry designs made from them is infinite.  Purple oyster shells were polished and used as currency in some tribes.  Mother of Pearl, Abalone, and Paua Shell are used by many Ethnic and Tribal areas.

Fossils & Amber

Fossil jewelry has been worn for many thousands of years.  Since prehistoric times, amber was made into amulets to heal and protect.  Amber is simply the fossilized sap from a pre-historic tree.  Many people believe Baltic amber is enchanted.  Amber with prehistoric insects is highly sought after, and pricey.

Amber Mouse Pin with Plant Fossils
Set in Sterling Silver

Other animal fossils are made into jewelry such as snail shells, fish, and small organisms such as the orthocone cephalopod.  These are polished and made into beautiful pendants, often edged in gold or sterling silver.  Prized fossils are that of dinosaur bone and dinosaur eggshells made into pendants or brooches.  

FLORA

Flowers/Clovers

Dried and pressed flowers are early jewelry components.  Dried flower petals and grains have been made into stylish portraits or collages.  Mustard seeds have religious meaning and have been inserted into rings and pendants.  Four-leaf clovers were made into jewelry to wear for good luck.

Dried Flower Ring

Wood

Wood was an early medium for everything from utensils to jewelry.  Intricately carved pieces of wood have been found as pendants and brooches.  Inlaid woods providing many different colors and patterns have been made into brooches and cuff bracelets.  The plastics era saw wood coupled with bakelite and/or lucite in fantastic figural creations.  The 1970's revived wood bead necklaces.

Nuts/Seeds

Nuts and seeds have been used as beads for necklaces and bracelets for centuries.  The Kukui Nut Lei necklace has seen a revival as recently as Jessica Simpson and the Dukes of Hazzard movie.  Most people think that this necklace was a revival of the 1960's and 1970's Bojo days, but in actuality, these necklaces were made earlier in the 1800's by Sailors.  Sailors would string the nuts together and carve intricate designs on the nuts.  They were given as gifts when they returned to port.  The necklaces were known as "Mariner's Art."

Vegetable Ivory is the nut of the South American Rain Forest Tagua Tree, or the Ivory-Nut Palm.  It can be carved into convincing replicas of animal ivory.  This can help stop poaching of Wild Animals, as well as help preserve the rain forests.  

Seed necklaces also became very popular in the 1960's as "Love Beads."  The seeds and/or nuts were stained in colors of the rainbow.  Often worn several at a time.

Natural Glass

Early cultures residing along sandy seashores often found natural glass on their beaches.  Lightning would strike on the beach, turning the sand instantly into glass.  The glass was highly polished and turned into pieces of jewelry, mostly pendants. 

Minerals

Minerals include a large variety of substances that are naturally mined.  Agate, or chalcedony, is a banded variety of quartz.  Quartz is the most common mineral on Earth.  Petrified wood, which is fossilized wood of a prehistoric tree, actually turns to agate.  All precious gemstones fall under the category "Mineral."  Every mineral is assigned a hardness on the Moh's Scale.

The "Mineral" category is so large and extensive, that it will require a separate guide in and of itself for identifying and describing the mineral gemstone.  Minerals, being natural substances, have magical and mysterious beliefs behind them.  Each stone has a particular property, according to folklore or legend.  Many cultures believe in the healing, protection, or good fortune of these particular stones.

The Jewelry of Nature

Whether you string the stems of some dandelions together and create yourself a sunshine necklace, or widdle yourself a wooden bird to wear as a shoulder brooch, the jewelry of nature is endless.  It doesn't take a priceless diamond and a band of platinum to show love, beauty or admiration.  All social classes and walks of life are capable of making breath-taking jewelry using what's around them.  Through the anals of time, human nature has been to use what we find wondrous - Mother Nature!