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Last Updated: Tuesday April 01 2008 12:25 GMT

Ancient gold necklace dug up

A reconstruction of the necklace

A really old necklace which was dug up in Peru has turned out to be the oldest known gold object made in the Americas, archaeologists reckon.

It was found alongside the jawbone of an adult skull in a burial pit near a place called Lake Titicaca.

Tests on the ancient bit of bling show that it's around 4,000 years old, when hunter-gatherers lived in the area.

Researchers say this proves people were using gold jewellery to show off their wealth long before we first thought.

Finding the necklace came as a bit of a shock to the people on the dig.

"It was not expected in the least," said Mark Aldenderfer, one of the experts. "It's always fun to find something and go, 'Wow, what is that doing here?'"

The necklace was probably made by flattening gold nuggets with a stone hammer and then carefully bending them to create a tube shape.