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Archaeologists have identified a plethora of beads fashioned from Tritia gibbosula shells in many Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites across western North Africa, including El Mnasra Cave, Morocco. In a 2021 paper, El Mehdi Sehasseh et al. attribute these artifacts' ________ to the evolution and propagation of symbolic behavior (e.g., use of personal ornaments) in humans and the availability of T. gibbosula during the MSA.