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A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa
Open accessAbstract
Ongoing debates about the emergence of modern human behavior, however defined, regularly incorporate observations from the later part of the southern African Middle Stone Age and emphasize the early appearance of artifacts thought to reflect symbolic practice. Here we report a large sample of 270 fragments of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from the Howiesons Poort at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape, South Africa. Dating from ≈60,000 years ago, these pieces attest to an engraving tradition that is the earliest reliable evidence of what is a widespread modern practice. These abstract linear depictions were made on functional items (eggshell containers), which were curated and involved in daily hunter-gatherer life. The standardized production of repetitive patterns, including a hatched band motif, suggests a system of symbolic representation in which collective identities and individual expressions are clearly communicated, suggesting social, cultural, and cognitive underpinnings that overlap with those of modern people.
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Cites
Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene
Marean, C. W., Bar-Matthews, M., Bernatchez, J., Fisher, E., Goldberg, P., Herries, A. I. R., Jacobs, Z., Jerardino, A., Karkanas, P., Minichillo, T., et al. (2007) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature06204 · Cited by 949
Cited by
The Evolution of the Brain, the Human Nature of Cortical Circuits, and Intellectual Creativity
DeFelipe, J. (2011) · Frontiers in Neuroanatomy · doi:10.3389/fnana.2011.00029 · Cited by 527
Hunter-gatherer genomic diversity suggests a southern African origin for modern humans
Henn, B. M., Gignoux, C. R., Jobin, M., Granka, J. M., Macpherson, J. M., Kidd, J. M., Rodríguez-Botigué, L., Ramachandran, S., Hon, L., Brisbin, A., et al. (2011) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1017511108 · Cited by 502
d’Errico, F., Backwell, L., Villa, P., Degano, I., Lucejko, J. J., Bamford, M. K., Higham, T. F. G., Colombini, M. P., & Beaumont, P. B. (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1204213109 · Cited by 448
Marean, C. W. (2010) · Journal of Human Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.07.011 · Cited by 342
Genetic and archaeological perspectives on the initial modern human colonization of southern Asia
Mellars, P., Gori, K. C., Carr, M., Soares, P. A., & Richards, M. B. (2013) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1306043110 · Cited by 276
Metadata
- Authors
- Texier, P.-J., Porraz, G., Parkington, J., Rigaud, J.-P., Poggenpoel, C., Miller, C., Tribolo, C., Cartwright, C., Coudenneau, A., Klein, R., Steele, T., & Verna, C.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2010-03
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 14
- Pages
- 6180-6185
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W2079110470
- Cited by
- 404
- References
- 1
- FWCI
- 162.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1073/pnas.0913047107
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- Texier, P.-J., Porraz, G., Parkington, J., Rigaud, J.-P., Poggenpoel, C., Miller, C., Tribolo, C., Cartwright, C., Coudenneau, A., Klein, R., Steele, T., & Verna, C. (2010). A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0913047107
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