Pierced Tooth Necklace from Lake Nitchie

The paper below makes some pretty interesting findings...

It notes that the skeleton that was discovered was dated to 6820+/- 200. The Tasmanian Devil population started dwindling from 7000 years ago. The author suggests that potentially the hunting of the Tasmanian Devil for their teeth could have led to their extinction on mainland Australia. The necklace could also be much older than the skeleton and could have been an important heirloom that was passed down for many generations.

The paper below supports the hypothesis that the necklace was passed down through generations.

Under magnification, the authors explain that many of the teeth have been gouged out using different techniques. They suggest that if it was just one person making the necklace, they would likely use the same method each time. So, this possibly represents a number of people over a long stretch of time contributing to the piece.