Exactly what is writing? We know that the spoken word has existed for tens of thousands of years among humans. We also know that once said, words quickly deteriorate in one’s memory and only through continued repetition can we even barely hope to retain a semblance of what was originally said. The only way our words can ever be really kept beyond just a few seconds is if we write them down. The system we use to do this must be recognizable and understood by others or the marks we make will be just so many scribbles on a page. Therefore, the most basic definition of writing suggests that it is “a system of intercommunication based on the use of conventional visible marks produced on a durable surface.”
This definition is posed by Genevieve von Petzinger in her outstanding new book “The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbols.” Petzinger’s main focus for the book is the abstract images found in Ice Age caves located near the more widely-researched, and easily recognized, paintings. Generally these marks are disregarded by paleoanthropologists, but Petzinger has made an extensive investigation of them. She developed a database of all the symbols she researched in the known caves of Europe, and discovered that there are 36 characters that are continually reproduced in caves across a vast territory of hundreds of miles. Furthermore, the same symbols are found carved onto jewelry buried with members of these Paleolithic tribes. Her excitement at finding a symbol, verifying the sameness of that character, and speculating on the meaning comes across throughout her book.
Her conclusions, supported by many neuroscientists, maintain that the ability to represent a concept in pictorial form is a capability attributed to modern humans, and is generally thought to be the first steps in making symbolic marks to convey a message. Otherwise known as the beginnings of writing.
Generally, historians suggest that writing seemed to appear out of nowhere between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago in Egypt, Sumer, and China. This “modern” writing is usually one of three types: alphabetic, syllabic, and logographic. But — what if we were to push that writing time line back, say by 20,000 years or so? This does not seem so far-fetched when we realize that the oldest cave art, which found in El Castillo, Spain, was painted 40,800 years ago! Could the use of symbols to represent thoughts be that far behind?
What if the symbols found in the Ice Age caves, and produced over a period of 30,000 years by succeeding generations living either in or near those caves, actually were put there to transmit a thought, a story, or even a map of the territory? We know that trade existed throughout Europe during these centuries. We also know that intermarriage, migration, and exchange of tools took place all the time throughout those centuries. As more research is done we continue to develop a picture of these people, who both looked like us and thought like us.
Today, we use the term “modern man” to explain ourselves and our place in time. Yet, these people, who originally migrated out of Africa 100,000 years ago, and in past generations have been seen by many historians and anthropologists as primitive, are as fully “modern” as we are. Petzinger uses the term “modern man” throughout her book, and with justification. After years of study, she clearly states that the mind of the Ice Age cave dweller and artist is capable of great abstraction and symbolic thought. Without those cognitive building blocks, represented by the symbols in the caves, we would not have the complex writing system we know today. She makes a very compelling case.
But — could these symbols represent something entirely different? They could, according to David Lewis-Williams. In his scholarly work, “The Mind in the Cave,” Lewis-Williams takes the biological approach by stating that these symbols are entoptics. These are visual effects whose source is within the eye itself and often seen when we shut our eyes and then put slight hand pressure on the lids. They can also occur as we drift into sleep. However, because entoptic images are caused by sensations within our own eyes, they cannot be shared directly with others. Is it possible that the symbols catalogued by Petzinger were thought by the Ice Age people to be another-worldly experience, and therefore worthy of a permanent record? That is to say, as the Paleolithic artist drifted off to sleep in her cave the entoptic images she saw could be interpreted as a mystical experience and worthy of a permanent record. As Lewis-Williams notes, the concept of shamanism was established during this period and he posits that entoptics were part of this religious experience.
Of course, this is just one aspect of Lewis-Williams’ extensive and very persuasive text. If you want to understand the full breadth of the Paleolithic Era and the people of that time, Lewis-Williams’ work is a fantastic place to start.
When I read these books, however, I noted strong differences of opinion between the two authors, and Petzinger takes Lewis-Williams on directly with her interpretation of the symbols. So, get ready for a good argument.
What both agree on, however, is that the minds that created both the symbols and the images are just like ours. Paleolithic man had the same cognitive abilities and processes as we possess — including the ability to imagine. That aspect of thought now brings us to a point of more speculation voiced by Bertrand David and Jean-Jacques Lefrere in their work, “The Oldest Enigma of Humanity: The Key to the Mystery of the Paleolithic Cave Paintings.”
This book, originally written in French and just recently translated by Molly Grogan, not only catalogs the various theories for the paintings and symbols found in the caves, it takes a further step and suggests that all the animals present on the walls are of “noble” stature. There are no rodents, insects, snakes, or other less majestic animals. Rather, according to David and Lefrere, each bison, deer, horse, or mammoth, as well as the symbols near them, represents a person. The caves are a type of cemetery — a sanctuary of remembrance — for those that were lost. Each animal depicted represents one who was lost to the tribe, perhaps from an animal attack or even an avalanche. The symbols and hand prints could be those of a child who had passed into the next world and was no longer in physical contact with the tribe. Interestingly, both Petzinger and Lewis-Williams allude to the handprints as a mystical way for Paleolithic man to penetrate the rock “veil” into another dimension.
Yet, all speculation aside, these symbols — although having a meaning now lost — represent modern minds creating a permanent record in an effort to make and maintain contact and communication of a message across both space and time. The thrill I got from seeing the images reproduced in the books, and reading the ideas posed about them will last in my mind. That is the power of writing.