World’s oldest social network? 50,000 years ago, beads let humans connect

Long before Facebook, TikTok, or any of the other platforms became popular, humans still nursed the desire to establish social connections. Now, decade long research involving over 1,500 beads made of ostrich eggshells, and discovered across Africa, has unearthed a 50,000-year-old communication chain. It has been heralded as the oldest identified social network. 

Shaped like a donut, these beads happen to be one of the earliest examples of personal adornments on archaeological records. To this day, some traditional hunter-gatherer groups in the continent make use of these beads. 

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Jennifer Miller, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, said “People made them to communicate symbolic messages, the way that today we might wear a wedding ring, to indicate something about social status, wealth or position in society.”

The study compared various characteristics of the beads, examining thickness and diameter. Researchers found that people used identical beads in sites spanning a distance of over 3,000 km. Although prior knowledge suggested there was genetic contact among the groups, so far, there was no evidence of cultural contact. 

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Describing the discovery as ‘mind-boggling’, the author noted that the oldest beads were found in East Africa, and they most likely spread to the south of the continent from there. 

While it is possible for the beads to have been exchanged directly, it is far more likely that the knowledge of bead-making was exchanged. There was a disruption 33,000 years back when the Zambezi River catchment was flooded. Since it connected the eastern and southern regions, the event led to a barrier in human connection. Further, it caused the southern population to disperse into smaller groups. 

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The paper posits that bead-making did not remain beneficial for social communication in the absence of a large gathering. The author explained, “Living in smaller groups (for example with immediate/extended family), symbolic communication can be more costly than beneficial — these convey messages that they would already know through other means.”