Today, hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari still collect ostrich eggs, for food, as beads, or as water containers. They puncture a small hole in the top of the egg, empty their contents and fill them with water. Texier says, “Some Bushmen groups, like the !Kung, use a graphic and schematic tradition to communicate collective identities as well as individual ones.” He thinks that the prehistoric hunter-gatherers may have used the eggs for a similar purpose. Their engravings may have been used to intentionally mark ostrich eggshell containers and some of the fragments show signs of forced entry, typical of modern egg-based water containers. To Texier, they were “elements of a collective and complex social life”, signs of a modern human intelligence operating tens of thousands of years ago. Christopher Henshilwood, another anthropologist working in South Africa, was also impressed. “Based on sheer numbers the evidence for deliberate decoration and symbol use is compelling.” He adds, “Perhaps the greatest challenge still is in explaining why the tradition of engraving appears to… appear, disappear and then reappear at different times and places.” Several years ago, Henshilwood found a different piece of abstract art at another South Africa cave called Blombos. It was a slab of ochre, also covered in geometric carvings and dating back to 70,000 years ago. “Is there really a connection betweeen the engraving traditions at 100 ka, 75 ka, 60 ka and those in the Later Stone Age?” he asks. “And why are engraved ostrich eggshells and ochre only found at some Middle Stone Age sites and not others?”
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 15:58:49 +0000
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