According to new evidence, Neanderthals in Europe used to wear eagle claws as jewelry. Eight talons from white-tailed eagles, together with four that had different notches and cut marks, have been identified by researchers. These have been identified from a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal cave in Croatia. According to them, claws were used to make a necklace or bracelet, which Neanderthals used to wear.

According to study authors, “Some have argued that Neandertals lacked symbolic ability or copied this behavior from modern humans. These remains clearly show that the Krapina Neandertals made jewelry well before the appearance of modern humans in Europe”.

Study author David Frayer, an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas, told Live Science that the finding is really surprising. Frayer said that it has been revealed by the evidence that Neanderthals were quite modern in their behavior.

In the beginning, the talons were unearthed over 100 years ago at a well-known sandstone rock-shelter site known as Krapina in Croatia. Archaeologists found over 900 Neanderthal bones, about 120,000 to 130,000 years old, and it was a comparatively warm, interglacial period. Mousterian stone tools, the bones of rhinos, cave bears and a hearth were also found by them. However, no evidence of modern human occupation was found over there. Homosapiens didn't go to Europe until approximately 40,000 years ago.

Frayer said that the eagle talons were discovered in the same archaeological layer and they were also studied earlier. However, the cut marks were not observed until last year, when Davorka Radovcic, curator of the Croatian Natural History Museum, was re-examining some Krapina objects in the collection.

Frayer said it’s hard to find eagle talons and it is possible that they were catching the birds live, which is difficult to do.