These 40,000-Year-Old Marks May Be a Precursor to Writing
ScienceAlert • • world
Key Points:
- Analysis of thousands of marks on Paleolithic artifacts from the Aurignacian culture (43,000–34,000 years ago) reveals structured symbol use, indicating early humans employed deliberate, systematic sign sequences for communication long before formal writing emerged.
- These marks, found on objects like figurines, tools, and ornaments, exhibit measurable patterns and information density comparable to early protocuneiform systems from around 5,300 years ago, though they do not directly encode spoken language or numerical concepts.
- Statistical analysis of over 3,000 individual marks showed consistent, non-random arrangements that varied by object type and remained stable for approximately 10,000 years, suggesting a shared communicative function rather than mere decoration.
- The findings imply that
