News Archaeology

Human ancestors engraved abstract patterns

Indonesian Homo erectus carved zigzags on a mussel shell

design carved into shell

SHELL GAME  A geometric design carved into this shell may indicate that human ancestors took up at least one form of “modern human behavior” long before Homo sapiens came along.

Wim Lustenhouwer, VU Univ. Amsterdam

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

A member of the now-extinct hominid species Homo erectus engraved a geometric design on a sea shell nearly half a million years ago, long before the earliest evidence of comparable etchings made by modern humans, researchers say.