February
28
/ 2026
A fresh study suggests that some of humanity’s earliest “geometric thinking” wasn’t scratched onto cave walls, but etched into ostrich eggshells used by Ice Age people in southern Africa. By measuring angles, line directions, and repeated pattern structures, researchers argue the designs follow consistent rules rather than ad‑hoc doodling. If they’re right, these fragile fragments preserve a surprisingly disciplined visual tradition more than 60,000 years old. A Geometric Grammar on Ostrich Eggshells The paper - Earliest geometries: A cognitive investigation of Howiesons Poort engraved ostrich eggshells, published by PLOS One analyzed 112 engraved fragments from sites in South Africa and Namibia. A companion report summarizing the work says over 80% of the configurations show coherent spatial regularities, including repeated parallel
