Some 18,000 years ago, in a cave in what we now call France, a human being left behind something precious: a conch shell. It was not just any conch shell. Its tip had been lopped off—unlikely by ...

A conch shell found in a cave used by the Magdalenian people of the late Upper Palaeolithic was originally thought to be a cup, but a new analysis suggests they used it as a kind of horn. That would ...