
Ancient Beads Point to Far-Flung Relationships in Southern Africa - diodorus
https://www.the-scientist.com/notebook/eggshell-beads-point-to-far-flung-relationships-in-southern-africa-67715
======
sradman
Original paper _Ostrich eggshell bead strontium isotopes reveal persistent
macroscale social networking across late Quaternary southern Africa_ :

> Hunter-gatherers like the Ju/’hoãnsi (!Kung) San use exchange networks to
> dampen subsistence and reproductive risks, but almost nothing is known of
> how, when, and why such practices emerged. Strontium isotope analysis of one
> preferred San exchange item, ostrich eggshell beads, from highland Lesotho
> shows that since the late Middle Stone Age ∼33 ka, such networks connected
> ecologically complementary regions over minimal distances of several hundred
> kilometers. Rapidly changing environmental conditions during Marine Isotope
> Stage 3 (∼59 to 25 ka) likely placed a premium on developing effective means
> of mitigating subsistence and demographic risks, with ostrich eggshell beads
> providing a uniform medium of personal decoration and exchange highly
> suitable for binding together extended open social networks.

[1]
[https://www.pnas.org/content/117/12/6453](https://www.pnas.org/content/117/12/6453)

~~~
cheez
Not just you, but is anyone aware of a book at a teenage reader's level that
would cover this kind of stuff in an engaging way?

