This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. I'm Meredith Johnson.

Today on the show, we're traveling through 50,000 years of human history, following a trail of clues hidden inside simple beads made from ostrich eggshells.

But before we get started, I want to thank our new podcast donors, Natalie Diebel,

Alexandra Dumofte, Sandra McIver, and our other new supporters who wanted to stay anonymous.

If you'd like to support the show and get a shout out on the next episode,

please click the link in your show notes right now,

or go to leakyfoundation.org and click the origin stories pop-up button.

Your one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation will be quadruple matched.

So if you give $10, we get $40 to help us tell new stories about what makes us human. Now, on with the

episode. Humans and beads go back a long, long way. When we see something pretty or shiny,

we want to pick it up, carry it around, and figure out a way to wear it so everyone else can

admire it too.

We string beads on necklaces, sew them into clothing, weave them through our hair.

They're beautiful to us, but they're more than ornaments.

When you wear a bead or hold one in your hand, you're connecting to an ancient, symbolic expression of your humanity.

The oldest known beads are around 142,000 years old. They were found in a cave in Morocco in North Africa,

where ancient hunter-gatherers collected seashells,

poked holes in them, and strung them up to wear.

And they must have looked incredible

because the same type of perforated

shells spread quickly throughout northern Africa and into the Middle East. My relationship with beads

goes all the way back to the beginning of my master's. I just knew that I was interested in personal

...