The Adorant figurine, approximately 38,000 years old, consists of a small, ivory plate bearing an anthropomorphic figure and multiple sequences of notches and dots. Image courtesy of Landesmuseum Württemberg / Hendrik Zwietasch, CC BY 4.0.
Joel Kontinen
Stone Age people 40,000 years ago used a simple form of
writing comparable in complexity to the earliest stages of the world’s first
writing system, cuneiform,
according to a study of mysterious signs engraved on figurines and other
artefacts found in Germany. If confirmed, this pushes back the emergence of a
proto-writing system by more than 30,000 years.
Ancient humans have long made deliberate marks on objects,
but some of the earliest groups of Homo sapiens to arrive in Europe
around 45,000 years ago took this to a new level. Many of the artefacts they
made, such as pendants, tools and figurines, were engraved with sequences of
graphic symbols such as lines, crosses and dots. These groups also painted
symbols on cave walls alongside depictions of animals, and the meaning
of these symbols has been contentious.
But if we think what actually happened so long ago, People have always been people,
According to Genesis, people
would try to write at the very beginning
of society.
Source:
Alison George 2026
Posts
