The marks might be one of the earliest examples of a coherent notational system:
As far back as roughly 25,000 years ago, Ice Age hunter-gatherers may have jotted down markings to communicate information about the behavior of their prey, a new study finds.
These markings include dots, lines and the symbol "Y," and often accompany images of animals. Over the last 150 years, the mysterious depictions, some dating back nearly 40,000 years, have been found in hundreds of caves across Europe.
Some archaeologists have speculated that the markings might relate to keeping track of time, but the specific purpose has remained elusive (SN: 7/9/19). Now, a statistical analysis, published January 5 in CambridgeArcheological Journal, presents evidence that past people may have been recording the mating and birthing schedule of local fauna.
By comparing the marks to the animals' life cycles, researchers showed that the number of dots or lines in a given image strongly correlates to the month of mating across all the analyzed examples, which included aurochs (an extinct species of wild cattle), bison, horses, mammoth and fish. What's more, the position of the symbol "Y" in a sequence was predictive of birth month, suggesting that "Y" signifies "to give birth."
(Score: 4, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday February 04, @07:45PM (6 children)
Why does everything has to be sacred, purposeful or serious? Those recordings could be nothing more than prankster tagging the Flinstone equivalent of "I was here" or "Fred loves Wilma" in the cave. Surely even cavemen had some free time to goof around.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday February 04, @09:02PM (3 children)
I've often thought that the famous "Venus of Willendorf" figurines were really just cave-man whacking material. I mean, they're all nude, with exaggerated sexual features, why assume they're something more than that?
And yes, I'm reasonably sure early humans had some free time, because more modern humans living mostly using early-human tech have plenty of free time too.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, @09:14PM (2 children)
Boy did I ever get shit in highschool for pointing out that some piece of popular culture (I forget what exactly) might be more esteemed in the future. We had literally just been taught that performances at Shakespeare's Globe Theater were often a heavy drinking occasion for the audience. Also, his plays are based on things with which they were familiar and the now high-minded sounding Elizabethan English was just the way they talked. I stand by my highschool remarks. 1000 years from now, they may not see that much difference between getting drunk at Shakespeare's plays and smoking weed at The Who concert; but it was too much for people to wrap their heads around when I said that.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday February 04, @09:42PM
A thousand years from now, there probably won't be a single byte of our digital culture left to analyze. We've set ourself on a course of short term cultural mass amnesia with our use of fast-decaying digital storage media.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday February 06, @12:13AM
I submit to you that future archeological treatise, "Digging the Weans".
http://www.joshpachter.com/pages/weans.pdf [joshpachter.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Sunday February 05, @02:46AM
Agreed, but... these markings (there are a bunch of different ones, enough to qualify as primitive writing) occur fairly commonly and exactly contiguous with the known Neanderthal range. To my eye they appear to be head counts of wild game, and sometimes more specific info. So I think for once the eggheads may be right, at least for the practical aspects.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Sunday February 05, @07:30PM
You seem to miss the point completely. "Kilroy was here" and "Fred Loves Wilma" weren't thought to exist for thousands of years. Plus, their logic of what it was actually saying was sound, if you read the article. But it doesn't matter, ANY writing that wasn't just crude pictures that long ago is incredibly noteworthy.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday February 04, @10:14PM
Throg and party gets 1:2 odds against that Saber Tooth Tiger that ate Throg's kid.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Sunday February 05, @05:59PM
When I read "ancient records" I imagined for a second the cave man version of Led Zeppelin III (which would basically be the same as Led Zeppelin III).
You are still welcome on my lawn.