DISCUSS the issues with it, don't just complain about them or blame OP.
We do like when people post the academic articles as well, but we also know that people often complain when there's not pictures. So it is a balance of trying to appease both the academic scholars and just the IFuckinLuvHistory groups.
>As humans, we store and share information. This allows us to distribute knowledge necessary for survival and to coordinate large groups. Our hominin ancestors harnessed the surfaces of mobile artifacts and cave walls as information carriers since the Paleolithic time period. Theories abound as to the meaning and function of these Paleolithic signs. However, very little is known about their basic, measurable properties. We here analyze a corpus of more than 200 mobile objects of a 43,000 to 34,000 y old Aurignacian culture—associated with the first modern humans to settle in Central Europe. These objects are adorned with several thousand geometric signs. We apply classification algorithms and statistical models to capture their quantitative properties. First, our analyses illustrate that these sign sequences are clearly distinguishable from modern day writing. Second, however, their statistical properties are comparable to sign sequences on the earliest protocuneiform tablets. Third, Paleolithic signs were systematically applied to yield higher information density on certain types of objects, e.g. ivory figurines compared to tools. These results cannot be taken to strictly prove that Aurignacian sign sequences encoded numero-ideographic information as in the case of protocuneiform. However, they prove that the first hunter-gatherers arriving in Europe already applied sign sequences of comparable complexity in a deliberate, systematic, and conventional manner—several ten thousand years before the advent of genuine writing.
The headline makes it sound bigger than what the evidence actually shows. The researchers found repeated scratch marks from about 40,000 years ago that follow patterns. That is interesting, but there is no proof these marks represent spoken language. For something to be called “writing,” it has to record language, not just show repeated symbols or designs. What this study suggests is that early humans used organized symbols much earlier than we thought. That is not the same thing as proving that writing existed 40,000 years ago. The discovery is important, but calling it “the first writing” goes too far.
Genuine question. Is "spoken language" really a defining trait required for something to be "writing?"
Because, to me at least, if a sequence of scratches was used in an organized way to convey ideas, that is what writing is, regardless of whether or not spoken language is used, and would in fact imply that writing predates spoken language.
But I do not study these things and would love to hear more from someone more educated in this field than I am.
That is a fair question. I am not an expert either, just someone who reads about history and linguistics. In academic terms, writing usually means a system that records spoken language, words, sounds, or sentences, so they can be read later. Humans have used symbols and marks for tens of thousands of years, but symbols alone are not automatically considered writing.
Spoken language came long before scripts. Writing appears only about 5,000 years ago, while speech is far older. So if scratches or symbols communicate an idea, that shows symbolic thinking, but unless there is evidence they represent actual speech in a structured way, most scholars would call that proto-writing or notation, not true writing.
To be clear, writing does not need to represent a spoken language.
A written language could be, for example, the entirety of language in itself without any spoken component.
It's just that we don't really see this happening outside of conlangs, so it would be unwise to assume a natural written language does not have a verbal component.
We don't need to know of the verbal component to figure out if a series of symbols are a language though.
Then again, you are right that symbols do not necessarily imply they exist as part of a written language.
Symbol systems can be used for many things not only as a formal language, they could also represent parts of a language, or specific concepts (eg.⛔), or a simple count.
I think when you look back at how the human brain reached its current form somewhere between 35000 to 100,000 years ago, you have to consider that humans back that far would have had spoken language much in the same way that all animals have languages.
So it’s not too far behind reason to think that it’s possible that earlier proto-writing equivalents like knotted cords, unfired clay tablets and the like could have easily existed far longer than expected. But organic materials don’t tend to keep shape that long in the material record.
afaik the current consensus is that humans have had language for as long as they have been "anatomically modern", mainly having advanced vocal cords as well as the brain, which puts it at at least 120,000 years back, some researchers even say 200,000.
this is based on the fact that absolutely every community ever documented on earth in any stage of development has some form of language, and also from observing that small children will develop a language between them even when not properly exposed to language, so it is considered innate to humans.
I agree with the general direction of what you are saying, but I would clarify one point. Human spoken language is not quite the same as animal communication. Many animals communicate in sophisticated ways, but human language is structurally more complex. It includes grammar, layered sentence structure, and the ability to produce an unlimited number of new ideas from a finite set of words. So when we say early humans had spoken language, we are referring to a uniquely human system, not just advanced signalling.
As for the second point, it is definitely possible that early humans used materials like wood, rope, leather, or soft clay to keep records. The problem is that these materials usually decay and do not survive for tens of thousands of years. So while earlier forms of proto writing may have existed, we simply do not have physical proof. It is a reasonable idea, but without surviving evidence, it remains a possibility rather than a confirmed fact.
I am not saying grammar appeared overnight. Of course language evolved. My point is about the basic difference between human language and animal communication. Even the earliest human language would have allowed flexible combinations of sounds to create new meanings. Animal communication systems are limited and mostly fixed.
So the distinction is not about how advanced modern grammar is. It is about the fact that human language, even in its early form, was fundamentally more open-ended than animal signalling.
And my point is that it's a continuum. There was no one discrete point where human language was distinctly more complex than animal signaling. The "earliest human language" was animal signaling. Whales use specific labels to refer to other whales. Is that language?
I actually find issue with this. We know that crows are capable of communicating enough detail to each other to be able to identify individual humans they’ve never seen before. There’s definitely layers of subtlety and complexity to animal communications that are similarly complex to human language. It’s been quite some time since the scientific consensus about animals has been them relying purely on some sort of instinctual reactions. We still undersell just how much information animals can communicate to each other.
This reminds me very much of this paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/an-upper-palaeolithic-protowriting-system-and-phenological-calendar/6F2AD8A705888F2226FE857840B4FE19 (article here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-64161861 )
probably not a writing system just yet, but it helps push back the date of "proto-writing", or "giving meaning to written/carved signs".
The next step would of course be to try and figure out whether we can figure out the meaning of these marks. Would be incredible if we find something similar to the pattern in the cave paintings mentioned above.
(also, fun fact, the author of the paper i'm linking is not in academics but works as a furniture conservator. makes his discovery all the more amazing)
"We here analyze a corpus of more than 200 mobile objects of a 43,000 to 34,000 y old Aurignacian culture—associated with the first modern humans to settle in Central Europe."
I'm sure writing is older than we currently know now. But what are we going to consider "writing"? At some point a definition becomes so general as to include artwork. What the article sort of gets at is what are all of the steps and innovations that would be necessary for a culture to develop writing. That is interesting to think about.
>The history of writing down thoughts and feelings could be tens of thousands of years older than previously believed, surprising archaeologists who made the discovery.
>The researchers discerned patterns of meaning in lines, notches, dots, and crosses on objects like mammoth tusks as old as 45,000 years in caves in Germany.
>Traditionally historians date the first written words to proto-cuneiform scripts made around 5,000 years ago in ancient Iraq, or Mesopotamia.
>The precise meaning of the symbols in Germany remains a mystery.
>The objects are from just before Homo sapiens moved to Europe from Africa where they interacted with Neanderthals.
>Until now it was thought that writing developed in Mesopotamia around 3,000 BCE, followed by hieroglyphics in Egypt and later in China and Mesoamerica.
>"The Stone Age sign sequences are an early alternative to writing," says Prof Christian Bentz from Saarland University, an author of the new research.
I'm sure there were exceptional prehistoric individuals who made the jump that written symbols could reflect concepts or physical things long before the Sumerians. But I think for this to be passed on and spread would be difficult without the stability of settlements and larger populations. this is just my opinion though.
Maybe the bigger problem was getting someone else to take the time to memorize what symbols that one person is using, so that writing would have a point?
MeatballDom | 13 hours ago
OP did not write the headline or the article.
DISCUSS the issues with it, don't just complain about them or blame OP.
We do like when people post the academic articles as well, but we also know that people often complain when there's not pictures. So it is a balance of trying to appease both the academic scholars and just the IFuckinLuvHistory groups.
Edit: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520385123
>As humans, we store and share information. This allows us to distribute knowledge necessary for survival and to coordinate large groups. Our hominin ancestors harnessed the surfaces of mobile artifacts and cave walls as information carriers since the Paleolithic time period. Theories abound as to the meaning and function of these Paleolithic signs. However, very little is known about their basic, measurable properties. We here analyze a corpus of more than 200 mobile objects of a 43,000 to 34,000 y old Aurignacian culture—associated with the first modern humans to settle in Central Europe. These objects are adorned with several thousand geometric signs. We apply classification algorithms and statistical models to capture their quantitative properties. First, our analyses illustrate that these sign sequences are clearly distinguishable from modern day writing. Second, however, their statistical properties are comparable to sign sequences on the earliest protocuneiform tablets. Third, Paleolithic signs were systematically applied to yield higher information density on certain types of objects, e.g. ivory figurines compared to tools. These results cannot be taken to strictly prove that Aurignacian sign sequences encoded numero-ideographic information as in the case of protocuneiform. However, they prove that the first hunter-gatherers arriving in Europe already applied sign sequences of comparable complexity in a deliberate, systematic, and conventional manner—several ten thousand years before the advent of genuine writing.
Jonathan3628 | 14 hours ago
Where's the actual research paper?
[OP] Tartan_Samurai | 14 hours ago
The research is published in the journal PNAS.
theb00kmancometh | 14 hours ago
The headline makes it sound bigger than what the evidence actually shows. The researchers found repeated scratch marks from about 40,000 years ago that follow patterns. That is interesting, but there is no proof these marks represent spoken language. For something to be called “writing,” it has to record language, not just show repeated symbols or designs. What this study suggests is that early humans used organized symbols much earlier than we thought. That is not the same thing as proving that writing existed 40,000 years ago. The discovery is important, but calling it “the first writing” goes too far.
feartheoldblood90 | 13 hours ago
Genuine question. Is "spoken language" really a defining trait required for something to be "writing?"
Because, to me at least, if a sequence of scratches was used in an organized way to convey ideas, that is what writing is, regardless of whether or not spoken language is used, and would in fact imply that writing predates spoken language.
But I do not study these things and would love to hear more from someone more educated in this field than I am.
theb00kmancometh | 13 hours ago
That is a fair question. I am not an expert either, just someone who reads about history and linguistics. In academic terms, writing usually means a system that records spoken language, words, sounds, or sentences, so they can be read later. Humans have used symbols and marks for tens of thousands of years, but symbols alone are not automatically considered writing.
Spoken language came long before scripts. Writing appears only about 5,000 years ago, while speech is far older. So if scratches or symbols communicate an idea, that shows symbolic thinking, but unless there is evidence they represent actual speech in a structured way, most scholars would call that proto-writing or notation, not true writing.
imdfantom | 12 hours ago
To be clear, writing does not need to represent a spoken language.
A written language could be, for example, the entirety of language in itself without any spoken component.
It's just that we don't really see this happening outside of conlangs, so it would be unwise to assume a natural written language does not have a verbal component.
We don't need to know of the verbal component to figure out if a series of symbols are a language though.
Then again, you are right that symbols do not necessarily imply they exist as part of a written language.
Symbol systems can be used for many things not only as a formal language, they could also represent parts of a language, or specific concepts (eg.⛔), or a simple count.
aethercatfive | 11 hours ago
I think when you look back at how the human brain reached its current form somewhere between 35000 to 100,000 years ago, you have to consider that humans back that far would have had spoken language much in the same way that all animals have languages.
So it’s not too far behind reason to think that it’s possible that earlier proto-writing equivalents like knotted cords, unfired clay tablets and the like could have easily existed far longer than expected. But organic materials don’t tend to keep shape that long in the material record.
kamemoro | 11 hours ago
afaik the current consensus is that humans have had language for as long as they have been "anatomically modern", mainly having advanced vocal cords as well as the brain, which puts it at at least 120,000 years back, some researchers even say 200,000.
this is based on the fact that absolutely every community ever documented on earth in any stage of development has some form of language, and also from observing that small children will develop a language between them even when not properly exposed to language, so it is considered innate to humans.
theb00kmancometh | 8 hours ago
I agree with the general direction of what you are saying, but I would clarify one point. Human spoken language is not quite the same as animal communication. Many animals communicate in sophisticated ways, but human language is structurally more complex. It includes grammar, layered sentence structure, and the ability to produce an unlimited number of new ideas from a finite set of words. So when we say early humans had spoken language, we are referring to a uniquely human system, not just advanced signalling.
As for the second point, it is definitely possible that early humans used materials like wood, rope, leather, or soft clay to keep records. The problem is that these materials usually decay and do not survive for tens of thousands of years. So while earlier forms of proto writing may have existed, we simply do not have physical proof. It is a reasonable idea, but without surviving evidence, it remains a possibility rather than a confirmed fact.
Count_Backwards | 6 hours ago
>human language is structurally more complex
It is now, but it didn't just spring into existence like that. Grammar would have been a later development.
theb00kmancometh | 6 hours ago
I am not saying grammar appeared overnight. Of course language evolved. My point is about the basic difference between human language and animal communication. Even the earliest human language would have allowed flexible combinations of sounds to create new meanings. Animal communication systems are limited and mostly fixed.
So the distinction is not about how advanced modern grammar is. It is about the fact that human language, even in its early form, was fundamentally more open-ended than animal signalling.
Count_Backwards | 6 hours ago
And my point is that it's a continuum. There was no one discrete point where human language was distinctly more complex than animal signaling. The "earliest human language" was animal signaling. Whales use specific labels to refer to other whales. Is that language?
Pandalite | 3 hours ago
Whales is a bad example because you'll find research on how whale songs may have similar structures to human language.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whale-songs-follow-basic-human-language-rules/
https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berkeley-and-project-ceti-study-shows-sperm-whales-communicate-ways-similar-humans
aethercatfive | 4 hours ago
I actually find issue with this. We know that crows are capable of communicating enough detail to each other to be able to identify individual humans they’ve never seen before. There’s definitely layers of subtlety and complexity to animal communications that are similarly complex to human language. It’s been quite some time since the scientific consensus about animals has been them relying purely on some sort of instinctual reactions. We still undersell just how much information animals can communicate to each other.
asphias | 6 hours ago
This reminds me very much of this paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/an-upper-palaeolithic-protowriting-system-and-phenological-calendar/6F2AD8A705888F2226FE857840B4FE19 (article here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-64161861 )
probably not a writing system just yet, but it helps push back the date of "proto-writing", or "giving meaning to written/carved signs".
The next step would of course be to try and figure out whether we can figure out the meaning of these marks. Would be incredible if we find something similar to the pattern in the cave paintings mentioned above.
(also, fun fact, the author of the paper i'm linking is not in academics but works as a furniture conservator. makes his discovery all the more amazing)
Deep_Joke3141 | 3 hours ago
Can the symbols represent ideas that can be spoken of? Would this represent written language?
JeelyPiece | 11 hours ago
These are from Neanderthal artefacts, before Homo Sapiens left Africa, but that's barely even mentioned.
jacobthellamer | 9 hours ago
How long have people been in Australia?
unicornroast | 6 hours ago
No, the artifacts examined here are from the Swabian Aurignacian Culture, 43 000 to 34 000 years old. These people were modern humans.
JeelyPiece | 6 hours ago
> The objects are from just before Homo sapiens moved to Europe from Africa where they interacted with Neanderthals.
unicornroast | 6 hours ago
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520385123
"We here analyze a corpus of more than 200 mobile objects of a 43,000 to 34,000 y old Aurignacian culture—associated with the first modern humans to settle in Central Europe."
The BBC article is wrong
JeelyPiece | 6 hours ago
I guess I can't trust the BBC anymore
GSilky | 2 hours ago
I'm sure writing is older than we currently know now. But what are we going to consider "writing"? At some point a definition becomes so general as to include artwork. What the article sort of gets at is what are all of the steps and innovations that would be necessary for a culture to develop writing. That is interesting to think about.
[OP] Tartan_Samurai | 15 hours ago
>The history of writing down thoughts and feelings could be tens of thousands of years older than previously believed, surprising archaeologists who made the discovery.
>The researchers discerned patterns of meaning in lines, notches, dots, and crosses on objects like mammoth tusks as old as 45,000 years in caves in Germany.
>Traditionally historians date the first written words to proto-cuneiform scripts made around 5,000 years ago in ancient Iraq, or Mesopotamia.
>The precise meaning of the symbols in Germany remains a mystery.
>The objects are from just before Homo sapiens moved to Europe from Africa where they interacted with Neanderthals.
>Until now it was thought that writing developed in Mesopotamia around 3,000 BCE, followed by hieroglyphics in Egypt and later in China and Mesoamerica.
>"The Stone Age sign sequences are an early alternative to writing," says Prof Christian Bentz from Saarland University, an author of the new research.
J4wsome | 8 hours ago
A far more compelling case, in my opinion is the Dispilio Tablet.
Over 7,300 years old. Wooden tablet, Carbon 14 dated.
The marks on this thing are far more extensive and much more indicative of some sort of “written text”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispilio_Tablet?wprov=sfti1#
fhtagnfhtagn | 6 hours ago
I'm sure there were exceptional prehistoric individuals who made the jump that written symbols could reflect concepts or physical things long before the Sumerians. But I think for this to be passed on and spread would be difficult without the stability of settlements and larger populations. this is just my opinion though.
GSilky | 2 hours ago
Maybe the bigger problem was getting someone else to take the time to memorize what symbols that one person is using, so that writing would have a point?
needlenozened | 3 hours ago
How did they write before they could think?
Nathan-Stubblefield | 8 hours ago
It’s pretty odd to assume that variations on a pattern of line segments or dots on an object must be information stored or communicated by writing.
MeatballDom | an hour ago
But we do have known examples of writing systems that use such things. See Ogham, for example.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/CIIC_504.gif
>Text reads BIVAIDONAS MAQI MUCOI CUNAVA[LI], or in English, "Of Bivaidonas, son of the tribe Cunava[li]".