According to new research, Neanderthals in what is now Croatia may have been making jewelry long before the arrival of modern man.

There was a time, not too long ago, when Neanderthals were considered ignorant cavemen who quickly vanished when the vastly superior Homo sapiens arrived. As time goes on, that picture appears increasingly inaccurate.

Neanderthals are the closest living relative of modern man. Unlike other animals with whom we share some DNA, we all have some Neanderthal genes, indicating that we interbred with them at some point.

Recent studies have suggested that Neanderthals made buildings, created fairly complex tools and possibly dugout boats. They buried their dead, created art and adorned themselves with feathers.

They may also have been making jewelry 130,000 years ago.

A collection of eight eagle talons, originally collected more than 100 years ago from a sandstone rock-shelter site that was once home to Krapina Neanderthals. Although it wasn’t noticed at the time of the original discovery, four of the talons bear multiple cut marks and all eight show abrasions that would not be naturally occurring in eagles. Three large talons also have small notches at roughly the same place.

The researchers are not sure how such a piece of jewelry would be held together.

The site is believed to have dated from a interglacial period, roughly 120,000 to 130,000 years ago. In total more than 900 artifacts were unearthed including Mousterian stone tools, a variety of anima bones and a hearth.

According to the authors of a paper published March 11, 2015 in the journal PLOS ONE these features could mark the talons as part of a piece of jewelry such as a necklace or bracelet.

“It’s really a stunning discovery. It’s one of those things that just appeared out of the blue. It’s so unexpected and it’s so startling because there’s just nothing like it until very recent times to find this kind of jewelry,” said David Frayer of the University of Kansas in a statement.

There is considerable debate about the extent to which Neanderthals were capable of abstract thought. The eagle talons, if they were in fact part of a piece of jewelry, would be a clear indication that they had some sense of symbolism and didn’t learn the practice later from Homo sapiens.

Modern humans didn’t arrive in the area until about 40,000 years ago.

The discovery would be especially interesting in light of the discovery, reported in December of 2014 of another piece of art. The seashell, found in Java, Indonesia contains only simple carvings that were probably made with a shark tooth. It is believed to have been made by a much older relative of man, Homo erectus, between 540,000 and 430,000 years ago.

If both the sharks teeth and seashell both turn out to be “art” it would indicate that abstract thought and creativity developed a long way up the human branch of the evolutionary tree.