Ostrich eggshell beads
Cuentas de cáscara de huevo de avestruz
- Date
- c. 50 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Enkapune Ya Muto, Mau Escarpment, Naivasha, Kenya
- Credited to
- Homo sapiens (Later Stone Age of East Africa)
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Perforated, polished discs made from fragments of ostrich eggshell, produced in series. Unlike natural shells, they are an entirely manufactured product that served as a gift and exchange item between distant groups.
Ambrose (1998) dated those from Enkapune Ya Muto to around 40-50 ka; Mumba (Tanzania) and Border Cave give similar dates. Miller and Wang (Nature, 2022) traced their style to reconstruct 50,000-year-old social networks.
What it led to
- gift-exchange networks such as the San hxaro
- the circulation of styles between eastern and southern Africa over tens of millennia
- standardisation of manufactured ornaments