The first modern humans Europe central, about 40,000 years ago, carved sequences of signs, a level of complexity and information density comparable to the first protocuneiform writing of ancient Mesopotamia.
Those humans carved into cave walls, tools and figurines of ivory, bone or horn sequences of signs, often repeated lines of notches, dots and crosses, the meaning of which is unknown but which they may have used to convey information and record their thoughts.
Researchers led by Saarland University (Germany) analyzed more than 3,000 geometric signs in 260 objects associated with the Aurignacian culture, from between 43,000 and 34,000 years ago, and published the results in PNAS.
The objective was not to discover their specific meaning, but to analyze the frequency trends and the tangible and measurable aspects of the signs, to analyze what they have in common with later systems and how they differ.
The analyzes show that these sequences of signs have nothing to do with current writing systems, but suggest that European hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic developed a system of symbols with a density of information statistically comparable to that of the first protocuneiform tablets of ancient Mesopotamia, which appeared 40,000 years later.
The artifacts date back tens of thousands of years before the first writing systems, to the time when Homo sapiens left Africa, settled in Europe and encountered Neanderthals.
Many were discovered in caves in the Swabian Alb (Germany), such as a small mammoth carved from a tusk and into which a Stone Age human carved rows of crosses and dots.
Another object, known as the Adorer, is a mammoth ivory plaque discovered in the Ach Valley, depicting a hybrid lion-human creature and adorned with rows of dots and notches.
“Our research is helping us uncover the unique statistical properties—or statistical footprint—of these sign systems, which are an early precursor to writing.”said the researcher Christian Bentzcited by the Saarland University.
The Swabian Alb is one of the regions where objects with this type of sign have been found most frequently, but there are also Paleolithic tools and sculptures with this type of intentional sign sequences in other regions.
For their research, the team digitized the sign sequences into a database, which they then used to evaluate the statistical properties of Stone Age sign inventories.
“Because of the high repetition rate and the high predictability of the next sign, we were able to show that entropy — a measure of information density — is comparable to that of proto-cuneiform, which appeared much later,” Bentz said.
The human ability to encode information in signs and symbols developed over many thousands of years and “writing is only one specific form within a long series of sign systems.”
The team estimated that Stone Age humans probably had cognitive abilities similar to ours, such as recording and transmitting information to others, which may have allowed them to coordinate groups or helped them survive.