In a groundbreaking study published in PLOS ONE, researchers from the University of Bologna (Italy) presented evidence of the oldest geometric thinking of Homo sapiens, discovered on fragments of eggshells in South Africa and Namibia. Archaeologists found that prehistoric people were using ostrich eggshells as water containers 60,000 years ago, decorating them with intricate geometric patterns—organized parallel lines and right angles. These findings confirm our ancestors’ ability for abstract planning and complex forms of communication long before the advent of writing, as exemplified by the —one of the oldest written records.
“We’re talking about people who didn’t just draw lines; they organized them according to repeating principles—parallelism, grids, rotations: this is visual grammar in its infancy,” said Silvia Ferrara, a co-author of the study. She believes these “marks reveal an astonishingly structured, geometric way of thinking.”
“Geometric Grammar” and Portable Water Containers
To learn more about the unusual engravings, the team examined over a hundred fragments of ostrich eggshells found at three archaeological sites in South Africa and Namibia. In total, these relics contained 1,275 engraved lines, reported IFLScience. Similar mysterious symbols were also depicted by ancient people later on—such as .
Using statistical and geometric analysis methods, the researchers found that 83.4 percent of the lines formed parallel pairs, and about a third of all line intersections were right angles. The team reported that more than 80 percent of the fragments exhibited spatial consistency among the elements. This indicated that the engravers had a solid understanding of geometry. Similar .
“This is not just about repeating signs: it’s genuine visual-spatial planning, as if the authors had a clear idea of the figure before they engraved it,” Ferrara said. They also employed cognitive operations such as rotation, repetition, movement, and hierarchical layering of signs to create more complex elements like shaded stripes, grids, and diamond-shaped motifs.
By tracking the marking patterns, researchers were able to gather data on their geometric properties.
“The results show that the Homo sapiens species in the late [Middle Stone Age] mastered precise, pre-planned schemes based on specific geometric principles: orthogonality [i.e., the use of right angles] and parallelism,” the researchers wrote in their report. “As a result, geometric grammar emerges,” they added.
According to Valentina Dechembri, another co-author of the study, the ability to create visual configurations while adhering to a set of geometric principles indicates an innate capacity for abstract thinking.
“Transforming simple forms into complex systems through specific rules is a deeply human trait that has characterized our history for millennia, from creating ornaments to developing symbolic systems and, ultimately, writing,” the scientist noted.
