Ostrich Eggs Used in Stone Age Communication

[n2doc]

Long before social networks, text messages, phone calls or even the postal system, hunter-gatherers would communicate using eggshells.

Tue Mar 2, 2010 12:29 PM ET | content provided by Bruce Bower, Science News

researchers say a cache of ostrich eggshells engraved with geometric designs demonstrates the existence of a symbolic communication system around 60,000 years ago among African hunter-gatherers.

The unusually large sample of 270 engraved eggshell fragments, mostly excavated over the past several years at Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa, displays two standard design patterns, according to a team led by archaeologist Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux 1 in Talence, France.

Each pattern enjoyed its own heyday between approximately 65,000 and 55,000 years ago, the investigators report in a paper to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/stone-age-eggshells.html

[izquierdista]

1. Somethings never change