Humans were writing on walls 42,000 years ago
05 January 2023
Abstract
In at least 400 European caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens groups drew, painted and engraved non-figurative signs from at least ~42,000 BP (Before Present) and figurative images (notably animals) from at least 37,000 BP. Since their discovery ~150 years ago, the purpose or meaning of European Upper Palaeolithic non-figurative signs has eluded researchers. Despite this, specialists assume that they were notational in some way. Using a database of images spanning the European Upper Palaeolithic, we suggest how three of the most frequently occurring signs—the line <|>, the dot <•>, and the <Y>—functioned as units of communication. We demonstrate that when found in close association with images of animals the line <|> and dot <•> constitute numbers denoting months, and form constituent parts of a local phenological/meteorological calendar beginning in spring and recording time from this point in lunar months. We also demonstrate that the <Y> sign, one of the most frequently occurring signs in Palaeolithic non-figurative art, has the meaning <To Give Birth>. The position of the <Y> within a sequence of marks denotes month of parturition, an ordinal representation of number in contrast to the cardinal representation used in tallies. Our data indicate that the purpose of this system of associating animals with calendar information was to record and convey seasonal behavioural information about specific prey taxa in the geographical regions of concern. We suggest a specific way in which the pairing of numbers with animal subjects constituted a complete unit of meaning—a notational system combined with its subject—that provides us with a specific insight into what one set of notational marks means. It gives us our first specific reading of European Upper Palaeolithic communication, the first known writing in the history of Homo sapiens.
Introduction
Around 37,000 years ago humans transitioned from marking abstract images such as handprints, dots and rectangles on cave walls to drawing, painting and engraving figurative art. These images, whether created on rock surfaces in the open air, in caves, or carved and engraved onto portable materials, were almost exclusively of animals, mainly herbivorous prey critical to survival in the Pleistocene Eurasian steppes. In most cases it is easy to identify the species depicted, and often the characteristics they exhibit at particular times of year. In Lascaux around 21,500 years ago, body shapes and pelage details were used to convey information about the sequence of rutting of several prey species on the cave's walls, in what was essentially an ethological calendar (Aujoulat Reference Aujoulat2005), and elsewhere, indicators such as the presence of antlers and aggressive confrontations are widespread indicators that seasonality, particularly that relating to creation, was a major characteristic of the earliest figurative art, as one might expect for hunter-gatherers.
Alongside these images, sets of abstract marks, particularly sequences of vertical lines and dots, <Y> shapes and various other marks are common throughout the European Upper Palaeolithic, occurring either alone or adjacent to and superimposed upon animal depictions, as has long been recognized (e.g. Hayden Reference Hayden2021; Leroi-Gourhan Reference Leroi-Gourhan1966; Reference Leroi-Gourhan, Leroi-Gourhan and Allain1979). These may occur on rock walls, but were commonly engraved onto robust bones since at least the beginning of the European Upper Palaeolithic and African Late Stone Age, where it is obvious they served as artificial memory systems (AMS) or external memory systems (EMS) to coin the terms used in Palaeolithic archaeology and cognitive science respectively, exosomatic devices in which number sense is clearly evident (for definitions see d’Errico Reference d'Errico1989; Reference d'Errico1995a,Reference d'Erricob; d'Errico & Cacho Reference d'Errico and Cacho1994; d'Errico et al. Reference d'Errico, Doyon and Colage2017; Hayden Reference Hayden2021). While the nature of accumulation of these is well known, and it is uncontroversial to assume that they mark information such as the passing of time and events within it, their specific meaning has remained elusive.
Our interest is with those non-figurative signs of the European Upper Palaeolithic associated with animal depictions, a relationship found with ~66 per cent of figurative images, according to Sauvet (Reference Sauvet1987). A variety of signs are associated with animal depictions, because of which it is sensible to assume that they had several meanings (Crellin Reference Crellin2020). This should be unsurprising, given that hunter-gatherers world-wide have used a wide range of recording, counting and communications systems involving subjects and numbers (e.g. de Smedt & de Cruz Reference de Smedt and de Cruz 2011; Overmann Reference Overmann 2013; Thornton Reference Thornton 2003).
We focus specifically on two clear and simple patterns: animals associated with sequences of dots/lines (assumed to function similarly here), and the branching <Y> sign in which a second line diverges from a first (Figs 1 & 2). Although these occur throughout the Upper Palaeolithic, the greater majority of known examples date to the Late Upper Palaeolithic, possibly suggesting their meaning changed over time or they became far more common aspects of depictions from the Mid Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian) onwards. As the identification of the animal with which the signs are associated is unambiguous, we investigate the meaning of the dots/lines and <Y> sign in ethological context. We do this by testing ecologically grounded hypotheses about prey behaviour using a database of such depiction-associated sequences. We reason that investigating the numbers of signs associated with images and the position of <Y> within line/dot sequences provide useful indicators of their meaning, based on the uncontroversial assumption that dots/lines represent numbers. By simple reasoning, the association of a number with an unambiguous subject—a horse, for example—might provide the foundation of a notational system that we could potentially analyse for further meaning. We reveal a system that was stable over a wide geographical area and over a period of tens of thousands of years.
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