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At least 20,000 years ago , mankind living in Europe created striking cave paintings of animal that they paired with curious signs : lines , dots and Y - shaped symbols . These marks , which are well known to researchers , might relate to the seasonal behavior of quarry animals , making the signs the first known writing in the history of humankind , a fresh study claims .
Although Paleolithic cave art is better known for its graceful horses and ghostly handprints , there are thousands of abstract or abstract marks that researcher have begun studying only in the retiring few decennary . In a study print Jan. 5 in theCambridge Archaeology Journal , a squad of student suggest that these seemingly abstract dots and argument , when set near animal mental imagery , really represent a sophisticated composition organisation that explains early humans ' apprehension of the union and birthingseasonsof authoritative local species .
A 21,500-year-old cave painting depicting an aurochs, an extinct cattle species, in the Lascaux caves in France. Notice the four dots (within the digital yellow circle), which may have had a special meaning for ice age peoples.
Other researchers , however , are not convert by the study ’s interpretations of these human - made mark .
Melanie Chang , a paleoanthropologist at Portland State University who was not imply in the discipline , separate Live Science in an email that she agrees with the researchers ' assessment that " Upper Palaeolithic people had the cognitive capability to write and to keep records of meter . " However , she cautioned that the researchers ' " hypotheses are not well - supported by their results , and they also do not address substitute interpretations of the marks they analyzed . "
What do the painted marks mean?
former humans in Europe were hunting watch - gatherers who ate a lot of meat from coinage such ashorses , deer and bison . When those animals came together seasonally in ruck , they would have been vulnerable to slaughter by humans . " It stick with that knowledge of the timing of migrations , coupling and parturition would be a central concern to Upper Paleolithic behaviour , " study first authorBennett Bacon , an independent researcher and furniture curator based in London , and colleagues wrote in their work .
Looking at the total number of marks — either dots or lines — found in sequences across hundreds of cave , the researcher disclose that none of the serial contained more than 13 marks , uniform with the 13 lunar months in each year . " Wehypothesizethat episode are conveying entropy about their relate creature taxa in units of calendar month , " they drop a line , noting thatspring , " with its obvious signal of the goal ofwinterand correspond faunal migrations to gentility ground , would have provided an obvious , if regionally differing , point of origin for the lunar calendar . "
The researchers ' statistical analysis of more than 800 sequences of marks associated with animals endure their idea — they encounter strong correlation between the issue of mark and the lunar months in which the specific animal is sleep together to couple .
This image of an 17,000-year-old engraved salmon, from Pindal cave in Asturias, Spain, has three lines placed within.
Taking their guess a step further , Bacon and colleagues focused on a Y - shaped sign that they think refers to a particular event in an animal ’s lifetime rhythm . Similar statistical analysis supports their finish that the placement of the Y - shaped preindication within a series of fall guy signals an brute species ' birthing season .
" The ability to assign nonfigurative mark to phenomena in the world , " they wote , " to record preceding events and omen future events , was a unsounded noetic achievement . "
Writing or proto-writing?
But is this the earliest known written material ? Bacon and colleagues demur , suggest that " it is best describe as a proto - authorship system , an intermediary dance step between a dim-witted notation / convention and full - blow penning . "
April Nowell , a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada who was not involved in this sketch , order Live Science by e-mail that " any study that explores non - figurative signs in more point is welcome , but I think there are a number of assumptions being made here that have yet to be prove . " Nowell questioned the Y sign , in picky . " The bulk of animal considered in this study are quadrupeds , and humans commonly crouch giving nascency , " she say . " If this sign is hypothesize to be iconic of the birth process , it is not obvious to me . "
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An annotated image of a roughly 23,000-year-old painting showing four dots associated with a red ochre drawing of an aurochs in La Pasiega cave in Cantabria, Spain.
Chang , the paleoanthropologist who is also an equestrian and knight owner , stick two alternative explanations for the Y foretoken . In some case , it could present the edge of the brachiocephalic muscle , a prominent turning point on a horse ’s neck opening . " In other case , " she said , " it is possible that what they recorded as Y ’s represent what modernistic horsepeople refer to as ' primitive scoring ' such as stage bars that are affiliate with wild - type sawhorse color , or they may represent hair patterns , or other anatomical feature . "
Study carbon monoxide - authorRobert Kentridge , a prof in the Department of Psychology at Durham University in the U.K. , severalize Live Science in an electronic mail that one of the speciality of their study is that they " have formally tested Ben [ Bacon ’s ] hypotheses about the meaning of the Y - star sign ’s position in sequences of marks and the lengths of succession of battery-acid and line and evidence that these do carry meaning , indeed think that would be important in the life of Palaeolithic hunting watch . "
In sum up their determination , Bacon and confrere wrote that they have " proposed the existence of a notational system associated with an unambiguous creature subject relating to biologically important effect " and that this allow them " for the first time to understand a paleolithic notational organisation in its entirety . "
Nonfigurative signs dating to 15,000 years ago that hunter-gatherers drew in black manganese and red ochre in Niaux Cave in the French Pyrenees.
A decade ago , however , Nowell and then - calibrate studentGenevieve von Petzingerco - created a database of slews of signs and repeating motifs from more than 200 caves in southerly France and Spain . Von Petzinger’sthesisdetailed patterns of cave wall symbol across time and space to well understand what these house entail for ice age people . " There are at least 32 unlike resort signs , " Nowell explained . " The authors have chosen to study three of them in a very specific context of use . "
— Cryptic 4,000 - twelvemonth - old piece of writing organisation may finally be deciphered
— Why does the Rosetta Stone have 3 kinds of authorship ?
— Who was the humans ’s first source ?
But the authors champion their decision to focus on the trio .
" It seemed sensible to centre first on the most common marking associated with figurative images , " field of study carbon monoxide gas - authorPaul Pettitt , a professor of archaeology at Durham University , told Live Science in an electronic mail . " childlike back breaker and lines are by far the most common . Of the more detailed signs , the Y sign is the most common . "
The investigator plan to amplify on their work . " We are analyzing other signs , " Bacon told Live Science in an email . " Rather than searching for the import of case-by-case signs , what we are looking for is the linguistic and cognitive bases that underpin the ' drop a line ' system . "
Nowell correspond with the study authors that the symbols were likely not randomly chosen and that it is potential the railway line and dots represent act . Even if the authors are right , she remark , that leave behind 90 % of the signs without any lie with meaning .
" There is still a lot about graphic communicating in the Paleolithic that we do not understand , " Nowell said .
