{"id":1232,"date":"2022-01-16T12:31:55","date_gmt":"2022-01-16T12:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network"},"modified":"2022-01-16T13:05:37","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T13:05:37","slug":"forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network","title":{"rendered":"Forget Facebook: Scientists May Have Unearthed World’s Oldest Social Network"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. <\/strong><\/span>It appears that thousands of years ago, people in Africa managed to make social connections without Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or any of the modern-day communication platforms that many can’t do without.<\/p>\n

Archaeologists have unearthed what they say is the world’s oldest social network that spread for thousands of miles between southern and eastern Africa and that took on trading beads made of ostrich eggshells (OES).<\/p>\n

A decade-long study of more than 1,500 ancient OES beads in 30 African cities was conducted by a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, including lead authors Jennifer Miller and Yiming Wang.<\/p>\n

The study, which was published in the journal Nature, found that those who made the beads 50,000 years ago exchanged them across huge distances, thus helping people share symbolic messages and strengthen alliances at the time.<\/p>\n

“We know that genetically these groups had some sort of contact, but there so far has been no cultural evidence. It’s kind of mind-boggling that these people, who lived 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, would have had some kind of social network that spread over such a long distance”, the researcher emphasised.<\/p>\n

Wang, in turn, pointed out that the result of the research is “surprising, but the pattern is clear”. He was referring to the study’s findings that suggested the existence of an ancient “social network” spanning more than 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) and connecting people in the two African regions, where almost identical OES beads were used.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this network finally ceased to exist in southern Africa 33,000 years ago, in what the researchers explained could have been caused by a major shift in global climate. This is not the case, by the way, with ostrich eggshells, which are still manufactured and worn by hunter-gatherers in present-day Africa.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Botswana<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. It appears that thousands of years ago, people in Africa managed to make social connections without Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or any of the modern-day communication platforms that many can’t do without. Archaeologists have unearthed what they say is the world’s oldest social network that spread for thousands of miles between southern and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":1231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,6,7,8,13,14,16],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-files","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-social","category-social-media","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"\nForget Facebook: Scientists May Have Unearthed World's Oldest Social Network - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It appears that thousands of years ago, people in Africa managed to make social connections without Facebook, Twitter, T ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forget Facebook: Scientists May Have Unearthed World's Oldest Social Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It appears that thousands of years ago, people in Africa managed to make social connections without Facebook, Twitter, T ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-01-16T12:31:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-16T13:05:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/01\/img-61e418072ebbb.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Forget Facebook: Scientists May Have Unearthed World’s Oldest Social Network\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-16T12:31:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-16T13:05:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network\"},\"wordCount\":321,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/01\/img-61e418072ebbb.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"files\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"Social\",\"social media\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/forget-facebook-scientists-may-have-unearthed-worlds-oldest-social-network\",\"name\":\"Forget Facebook: Scientists May Have Unearthed World's Oldest Social Network - 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