Long before postcards and commemorative mugs, ancient hominins may have gathered meaningful objects from the landscapes they traveled. Researchers at Tel Aviv University argue that this “souvenir niche” emerged roughly half a million years ago, when Homo erectus and the earliest Neanderthals roamed Earth.

The proposal centers on archaeological evidence showing that prehistoric hominins repeatedly collected and retained objects without obvious practical functions. The researchers describe this routine curation of unusual items as behavior extending beyond purely utilitarian needs.

Their analysis focuses on sites in the Levant, where colorful pebbles, crystals, fossils, and weathered tools have been discovered. These objects may have served as keepsakes, markers of personal experience, or simply attractive items that caught someone’s attention.

At Qesem Cave in Israel, colorful pebbles without an obvious function were continually stored between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago. Their presence contributes to the researchers’ argument that some early humans deliberately gathered distinctive objects rather than collecting only useful materials.

Evidence from the nearby Sakhnin Valley offers another striking example. A human ancestor, probably Homo erectus, made handaxes from rocks containing crystals and geodes, even though these materials would have been particularly difficult to knap.

Researchers have suggested that the challenging materials may have been intentionally selected because they were regarded as spiritually potent. The handaxes therefore raise the possibility that their makers valued certain stones for qualities beyond their practical usefulness.

Other possible keepsakes include double patinated flint tools found at Revadim, Jaljulia, and Qesem Cave. Signs on the objects indicate that they were discovered and collected years after they had originally been used.

Surface analysis suggests that the hominins who recovered these tools deliberately preserved their worn, oxidized appearance. According to the researchers, maintaining that appearance may have protected the objects’ “biographies,” allowing their visible age and earlier histories to remain recognizable.

“We propose that curated keepsakes functioned as portable external memory devices,” write the study authors. Their argument is that physical objects could have connected memories with particular places, helping prehistoric hominins retain records of experiences across a landscape.

The authors further suggest that these material traces may have helped distinguish genuine experiences from imagined ones. In that interpretation, a familiar stone or recovered tool could have supported confidence in a memory by providing durable physical evidence linked to an event.

Study author Ran Barkai connects the behavior’s emergence around 500,000 years ago with new existential challenges facing hunter gatherers in the Levant. He said the disappearance of large animals pushed early humans toward new hunting methods and required greater familiarity with different hunting grounds.

“The disappearance of large animals, particularly elephants, required early humans to develop new hunting methods and become familiar with hunting grounds inhabited by animals such as fallow deer and wild cattle,” Barkai said in a statement. Objects gathered from those places may have helped people maintain personal connections with landscapes that provided their livelihood.

The researchers acknowledge that the hypothesis remains speculative, but they propose that accumulating physical souvenirs may eventually have supported the emergence of autobiographical memory. In this view, keepsakes could have helped anchor important encounters for years after they occurred.

“When early humans brought a colorful stone or an old tool they had found in the landscape back to their cave, that object may have helped them remember a significant event or encounter for the rest of their lives,” said study author Yoav Ram.

Ram added that keepsakes may have become a kind of external memory device, supporting the evolution of brain mechanisms involved in autobiographical memory. The researchers connect that form of memory with human identity, while stopping short of presenting their explanation as settled fact.

At the same time, the objects may have been collected simply because ancient hominins enjoyed their appearance. That possibility has previously been offered to explain marine fossils found in a cave in Spain, where Neanderthal children are thought to have gathered mollusk casts for fun.

The study brings these examples together as evidence that collecting may have deep prehistoric roots. Its findings and speculative framework have been published in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology.