Pictographic tablet featuring an account of 33 measures of oil, from Godin Tepe, Iran (Courtesy Dr. T. Cuyler Young, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto).
A recent
paper by Christian Bentz and Ewa Dutkiewicz of the Saarland University in
Saarbruken, Germany investigated deeply the human applied marks on Paleolithic
carved bone and stone to attempt to gain deeper understanding toward their
possible significance. “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.”
(Bentz and Dutkiewicz 2026:1) We need to carefully distinguish between what these
authors claim and what the headline editors of reports on it have stated. Bentz
and Dutkiewicz have not claimed that these marks constitute a form of writing. “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.”
(Bentz and Dutkiewicz 2026:1) News outlets and others who have referred to
their paper have, unfortunately, tended to use the word ‘writing’ in their descriptions.
To set the
scene - “At the beginning of the Upper
Paleolithic around 45,000 calibrated years before present (cal BP), modern
humans arrived in Eastern and Central Europe. On their journey they encountered
their distant relatives—Neanderthals. In this time of migrations and population
turn-overs, modern humans produced a panoply of so-called mobile objects, such
as tools and figurines made of ivory, bone, or antler. These are present right
from the earliest period of the Upper Paleolithic, the so-called Aurignacian
technocomplex. Especially the Dordogne region in southwestern France, the cave
systems of the Swabian Jura in southwestern Germany, and a cluster of sites in
Belgium have yielded hundreds of objects adorned with sequences of geometric
signs.” (Bentz and Dutkiewicz 2026:1) Many explanations for these signs on
the ivory, bone and antler carvings have been proposed. People have tried to
make them out to be complicated mathematical or calendrical records. Many of us
have suspected that some of them represent tallies.
Pendant, 41.5 kbp, Stajnia Cave, Poland. Image from Sci Rep 11, 22078, 2021.
A press
release from Saarland University, where Bentz and Dutkiewicz are both employed
states that “More than 40,000 years ago
Ice Age humans were carving repeated patterns of dots, lines, and crosses into
tools and small ivory figurines. A new computational study of more than 3,000
of these Paleolithic signs reveals that they were not random decorations but
structured sequences with measurable complexity.
Surprisingly, their information density rivals that of proto-cuneiform, the
earliest known writing system that emerged around 3,000 BCE.” (Saarland
University) This part depended on the statistical analysis that goes way beyond
my ability, and sometimes past believability.
“the people of the Swabian
Aurignacian were among the first modern humans to settle in Central Europe.
They inhabited the caves of the Lone and Ach Valleys around 43,000 to 34,000
calibrated years ago. They have left behind a panoply of tools and mobile artwork—testimony
to their technical skills, and their rich culture. This includes a collection
of several dozen ivory figurines, representing animals occurring in the
environment at the time, as well as mystical figures of an imaginary world
forever lost to us. A subset of these mobile artifacts carry sequences composed
of overall more than 3000 signs intentionally carved into their surfaces.” (Bentz and Dutkiewicz 2026:7)
“Our analyses show that these
sequences are clearly statistically distinct from those generated with modern
day writing systems to represent spoken languages. However, they have a very
similar “statistical fingerprint” as the earliest numeric and numeroideographic
protocuneiform tablets stemming from the Uruk V period of 3500 to 3350 BC. Moreover,
the Aurignacian sequences were not indiscriminately applied to different
objects, rather, ivory figurines carry the sequences of highest information
density—independent of material constraints such as volume and preservation.” (Bentz and Dutkiewicz 2026:7)
“The hunter-gatherers of the Swabian
Aurignacian have hence developed a sign system with some incipient design
features also found in writing, that is, an inventory of different sign types
and their linear arrangement, but lacking other design features, e.g.
productive combinatoriality of different sign types as well as the rebus
principle. It remains hard—or impossible—to prove that Aurignacian sign systems
served the same numero-ideographic functions as protocuneiform. Moreover, there
is another stark contrast between them: Protocuneiform developed into a
full-blown writing system representing the Sumerian language within the
subsequent 1,000 y. The sign sequences of the Swabian Aurignacian, on the other
hand, were stable in terms of information density—for 10,000 y—and then
disappear.” (Bentz
and Dutkiewicz 2026:7) But, what sort of information were they recording. One
possibility is that they were recording details of the animals that were so
important to their lives.
Marked clay envelope with tokens it contained. Image from Musee du Louvre.
This seems
to be very much a descendant of the seminal 1978 article in Scientific American
by Denise Schmandt-Besserat. Her breakthrough identified the beginnings of
Mesopotamian hieroglyphs as being marks on the clay seals of packages and clay
envelopes indicating their contents. “The
earliest examples of writing in Mesopotamia may not, as many have assumed, the
result of pure invention. Instead they appear to be a novel application late in
the fourth millennium B.C. of a recording system that was indigenous to western
Asia from early Neolithic times onward. In this view the appearance of writing
in Mesopotamia represents a logical step in the evolution of a system of record
keeping that originated some 11,000 years ago.” (Schmandt-Besserat 1978:59)
One of the pieces of evidence presented by Bentz and Dutkiewiecz of a piece of
clay with some indentations in it.
Ach Valley tusk fragment found in Geissenklösterle Cave, Germany. Image from www.astronomytrek.com.
One of the other
examples covered in Bentz and Dutkiewiecz is a car ved piece of mammoth ivory
called the Ache Tusk. Also known as the so-called ‘Adorant’ it was recovered
from Geissenklosterle Cave. “Geissenklosterle
is an archaeological site of significance for the central European Upper
Paleolithic, located near the town of Blaubeuren in the Swabian Jura in
Baden-Wurttemberg, southern Germany. First explored in 1963, the cave contains
traces of early prehistoric art from between 43,000 and 30,000 years ago,
including some of the oldest known musical instruments and several animal
figurines.” (Wikipedia) One side of this artifact has a carved, seemingly
anthropomorphic, figure, and the other side has a large number of dots. This
has been proposed in the past to be a calendrical inscription.
Carved animal, Geissenklösterle Cave, Germany. Internet image, public domain.
Many of the
carved animals from Geissenklosterle Cave are engraved with patterns of carved
diamonds, Xs or Vs. These diamonds, Xs and Vs carved on ivory figurines might
well represent hair. Their locations are in the same places that long hair
would be found on the animals, as in the lion’s mane, the body of the wooly
mammoth and the hairy line down the croup of the horse. This usage would be
recording information and thus is totally compatible with the premise of Bentz
and Dutkiewicz. Details of winter vs. summer pelage might be important to
teaching hunting skills.
Carved ivory mammoth, Vogelherd Cave, Germany. Internet image, public domain.
Wooly mammoth. Internet image, public domain.
Recovered
from Vogelherd Cave are carved horses, lions, and unknown animals dating back
to ca. 40k years BCE. Anotheer example is a carved ivory mammoth from Vogelherd
Cave located in the eastern Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany. Patterns of
Xs and diamonds range around its body possibly represented the hair of a wooly
mammoth.
Carved ivory horse, Vogelherd Cave, Germany. Image from Donsmaps.com.
Wild horse in winter pelage. Image from Wikipedia.
All of this
is to bring me to my point that the press reports are unfair to Bentz and
Dutkiewicz. Every article headline that used the word ‘writing’ led readers to
unfound assumptions. Their primary claim was that the marks may have
represented data and that is totally true, they do. The data just isn’t
written. X marks representing hair on an animal is a record of data, a record
of where the animals heavy winter pelage might be found for example. Dots of
related marks may represent tallies. While Schmandt-Besserat came up with these
concepts first, and somewhat deeper and more insightful analysis, their paper
is a reasonable contribution to the literature. I have only one other
criticism, they did not cite Schmandt-Besserat in their paper or list her in
their references, but this was probably just an oversight.
NOTE: Some images in this column
were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs.
If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and
will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with
them. For further information on these reports you should read the original
reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Bentz, Christian and Ewa Dutkiewicz, 2026, Humans 40,000 y ago developed a system of conventional signs, 14
January 2026, PNAS, Vol. 123, No. 9, https://doi.org/10/1073/pnas.2520385123.
Accessed 4 February 2026.
Saarland University, 40,000-year-old signs show humans were recording information long
before writing, Science Daily, 25 February 2026. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/2600225001301.htm.
Accessed online 4 February 2025.
Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, 1978, The
Earliest Precursor of WritingScientific American, Vol. 238,
No. 6, pp. 50-59.
Wikipedia, Geissenklosterle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geissenklosterle. Accessed
10 April 2026.
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