Pierre-Jean Texier a,1, Guillaume Porraz b, John Parkington c, Jean-Philippe Rigaud a, Cedric Poggenpoel c,
Christopher Miller b, Chantal Tribolo d, Caroline Cartwright e, Aude Coudenneau f, Richard Klein g, Teresa Steele h, and Christine Verna i
-Author Affiliations
aCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5199-De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel: Culture, Environnement, et Anthropologie, Université de Bordeaux 1, 33405 Talence, France;
bInstitut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Archaölogie des Mittelalters, Universität Tübingen, 72070 Tübingen, Germany;
cDepartment of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, 7701 Cape Town, South Africa;
dInstitut de Recherche sur les Archéomatériaux, Centre de Recherhe en Physique Appliquée à l'Archéologie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Maison de l'Archéologie, Université de Bordeaux 3, 33600 Pessac, France;
eResearch Laboratory, Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, British Museum, London WC1B 3DG, England;
fUnité Mixte de Recherche 6636, Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l'Homme, Université Aix-Marseille I, 13094 Aix-en-Provence, France;
gDepartment of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
hDepartment of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; and
iDepartment of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
Edited by Ofer Bar-Yosef, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved January 26, 2010 (received for review November 11, 2009)
Abstract
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.
cultural modernity Middle Stone Age anatomically modern humans symbolic expression
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:pierrejean.texier@ipgq.u-bordeaux1.fr.
Author contributions: J.-P.R., C.P., C.M., C.T., C.C., A.C., R.K., T.S., and C.V. performed research; P.-J.T. and G.P. analyzed data; and P.-J.T., G.P., and J.P. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0913047107/DCSupplemental.
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