Middle or YA fiction, multiple story lines: one an Archeologist who finds a shell with a hole, one with the ancient girl who carved the whole. Read in 1990s.

[Elsie]

I read this in the mid-to-late 1990s. The main storyline is about a young woman archeologist who finds a shell with a hole in it on a dig site and is figuring out it’s an example of the earliest use of tools by people and as she and her team theorize about the history and origin of the shell and continue to find other artifacts and clues, there are flashbacks to the actual girl who uses a sharp rock to make the hole in the shell, I think to set up a trap to help catch more fish?

[Kris]

Elsie, I moved your request thread to the "Unsolved" folder because you're looking for one specific book.

[Tab]

Did the girl have any family, friends, pets, etc?
How about the woman?
What time period(s)/location(s) do the story take place?
Part of a series?
Anything about the cover?

[Elsie]

I can’t remember anything specific about the girl’s family/friends but I do think there were other people around who didn’t really understand what she was trying to do with the shell. The woman was part of an archeological dig so there were coworkers with her. I think her timeline was also around the 1990s. The cover is kind of fuzzy to me but I think it was beige and the illustration might have been the beach area in the girl’s timeline.

[Capn]

Are you still looking, Elsie?

We did a big dig (ha!) and pulled up another 90 or so MG/YA archaeology books (I love 'em! Your book isn't one I've read yet), and added them here:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9...

[Genesistrine]

A Bone From A Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson?