Ancient Stone Age Markings May Be Early Form of Writing

Thousands of markings on objects made around 40,000 years ago may have been more than just doodles, a new analysis suggests. One of the oldest known pieces of art on the planet is a figurine of a mammoth that was carved in ivory by a Stone Age artisan some 40,000 years ago. Found in what is now Germany, it is marked with crosses and dots. The meaning of these markings is a mystery—but a new analysis of the object and hundreds of others found in the same region reveal that the markings may have meant something specific to their ancient creators.

Researchers analyzed more than 3,000 markings on 260 objects, including the mammoth, that were found in caves in Germany. They determined that the markings’ patterns are as statistically complex as protocuneiform, an early form of writing that was found on tablets from ancient Mesopotamia that were dated to around 3,500 B.C.E. The findings, which published Monday in PNAS, could shed light on why ancient humans made art and what purpose it served.

This type of work can be “challenging,” in part because such ancient markings are practically impossible to interpret, explains Genevieve von Petzinger, a paleoanthropologist and National Geographic emerging explorer, who studies the origin of writing and wasn’t involved in the new study. But looking for patterns in the symbols, such as intentionality and repetition, “are two excellent approaches for at least trying to confirm that these marks were meaningful beyond being decorative doodles.”

The analysis was based on a trove of Stone Age objects, from the mammoth to a mysterious lion-human hybrid to lesser-known tools and musical instruments, explains Ewa Dutkiewicz, a research associate at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin. Many of the objects were covered with markings, but the reason why was a mystery. Were they decorations, tallies of hunting kills or something else?

Dutkiewicz worked with linguist Christian Bentz, an associate professor who studies the history of language at Saarland University in Germany, to digitize the markings on the objects. They compared features of the markings—sign diversity and repetition, for example—to those of other, more recent sign systems, including modern writing.

The markings don’t resemble modern-day writing. But when Bentz compared the marks to early protocuneiform, the similarity was unmistakable, Bentz says. “I couldn't believe it. I went through the data again and again,” he says. The Stone Age markings and protocuneiform appear to be similarly complex, despite being separated by some tens of thousands of years and considerable distance.

Across the 260 objects, ivory figurines such as the mammoth carried more information-dense markings than those on the tools, the researchers say. Crosslike marks don’t appear on objects depicting humans, while dots don’t appear on tools—indicating that the markings must have had some sort of symbolic meaning to the Stone Age humans who made them, Bentz says.

“The organization [of the markings] points to the transmission of more complex ideas,” von Petzinger says. Decoding what they meant is an exceptionally difficult—if not impossible—task. But Bentz and Dutkiewicz’s methods could help other researchers analyze what similar markings on other ancient objects from elsewhere around the world may signify—even though they cannot read them.

“The more we can learn about the selection of ‘writing’ surfaces and choices about specific images and signs, the more we will be able to learn about this period from which [writing] later emerged,” von Petzinger says.