Trail of African bling reveals 50,000-year-old social network

[Judi Lynn]

Study finds ancient hunter-gatherers traded eggshell beads over vast area

Robin McKie, Science Editor
Sun 16 Jan 2022 02.30 EST

Scientists have uncovered the world’s oldest social network, a web of connections that flourished 50,000 years ago and stretched for thousands of miles across Africa.

But unlike its modern electronic equivalent, this ancient web of social bonds used a far more prosaic medium. It relied on the sharing and trading of beads made of ostrich eggshells – one of humanity’s oldest forms of personal adornment.

The research by scientists in Germany involved the study of more than 1,500 of these beads, which were dug up at more than 30 sites across southern and east Africa. Careful analysis suggests that people who made the beads – which are still manufactured and worn by hunter-gatherers in Africa today – were exchanging them over vast distances, helping to share symbolic messages and to strengthen alliances.

“It’s like following a trail of breadcrumbs,” said the study’s lead author, Jennifer Miller, of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in the city of Jena. “The beads are clues, scattered across time and space, just waiting to be noticed.”

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/16/trail-of-african-bling-reveals-50000-year-old-social-network