Deep in a narrow cave, called Rising Star, not far from Johannesburg, South Africa, palaeontologists found symbols scratched into the rock walls.
The symbols were hashtags : #
The # symbols may date over 300,000 years ago.
Strangely enough the same # symbols were found in caves in Europe, more than 8000km away, where Neanderthals fossils were found. These hostages were dated to around 50,000 years ago.
So hashtags have been popular since beginning of our human species (Homo Sapiens) and even before with their deep time ancestors, Neanderthals and even older, Homo Naledi.
And in that Rising Star cave they found fossilised skeletons of hominids, called Homo Naledi, of more than 300,000 years old. Naledi means Star in the local language of the indigenous peoples.
Naledi had many “human’ traits like walking up right, using tools and fire and burying their dead.
And now we think they inscribed # symbols in their cave walls. (No, they did not have Twitter). Naledi were slight hominids of about 1.5m in height, 45kg weight and a brain the size of an orange.
What do the hashtag # symbols mean? We simply do not know. Yet.
The Global Soul 