Symbols in Stone-Age European Cave Art - A Precursor to Language?

The human animal of 200,000 years ago had a similar brain size and physical features, but still didn't think like us yet. When did the shift take place where we developed the cognitive faculties to become who we are now?

Why is this important? Communication. Communication is done by all animals species at some level or another. Humans have been able to take it to another level. We've been building on the achievements of those who came before us. When did a shift occur for communication and language?

Grande Grotte d’Arcy-sur-Cure

Genevieve von Petzinger, a Canadian anthropologist, worked at 52 rock-art sites across Europe, studying the art of humans between 10 to 40 thousand years ago. 32 of the sites had similar signs that were etched onto animal cave paintings, or in the margins between them in some cases.

How did she notice these signs and not other researchers? They overlooked them in their focus on animal paintings. Her attempt to gain access to various sites shows how coveted knowledge is and the secrecy around knowledge of certain kinds, like in academia where access to knowledge is not free for all to gain. The Steemit related PEvO group is looking to resolve that issue.

Petzinger had to go through other researchers material for references to symbols and shapes, and then go find some obscurely located caves that were hard to find. Some shapes were alone in tiny tunnels she had to crawl to get to, and some were easy to get to, being beside large animal paintings in more well-known caves.

Symbols mark a leap in the evolution of communication. Instead of being limited to time and space to convey a message person to person, shapes could be used, etched, conveyed into the future, and carried over land.

In look at a 32,000 year period, across the entire continent of Europe, Petzinger discovered 32 signs that have been shared in common for that time period. Some signs spanned thousands of kilometers in use, while some were restricted to smaller territories. These signs don't number enough to be used for a language in an area, and they weren't etched enough at one place to suggest they were used as an alphabet either.

They were most likely used to reference other things, as has been done in later cultures like Egypt with pictographic meaning. They could mean references to geographic or landscape features in the area as a map, or of the stars in the sky, maybe other things like weapons or traps.

Lascaux

They were already referencing animals in art. Using shapes and geometry to reference other parts of reality is a next step to enlarge the symbolic lexicon. These are the beginnings of playing with abstract signs and developing written languages. Being able to represent an idea with an abstract symbol we created, is something other animals don't do, and could be that signal for where we began to become the humans we are today.

Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, Ardèche

Others, however, like Alison Brooks and Peter Mitchell, argue that there was no leap forward in communication at that time, that everything was already developed before they painted. The cave paintings were preserved to show how advanced people were at the time, at the level of art. If they would have never painted in the caves, we would still think the people at that time were much more primitive.

April Nowell, a colleague of Petzinger, agrees that the people were likely as capable as you or me. It looks like the leap forward from basic communication to more advanced symbolism did not occur at the time. But it's a possible intermediary dvelopment phase, if there weren't already languages used in various areas that we just don't have proof of.

Grotte de Rouffignac

Petzinger's research also suggests these symbols came in and spread with trade routes, and that 2/3 of the symbols were already being used by humans before any settled in Europe. Many of the 32 signs she found were used outside of Europe. It's even possible a homo erectus early human etched a zigzag on a shell 500,000 years ago and knew what they were doing... maybe...

Creating and using signs isn't something from 40,000 yeas ago though. It goes back at least 100,000 years. But using deliberate repetition of symbols to convey greater abstract meaning, is not certain. Demonstrating that signs follow deliberately, and not randomly, is not always doable. Were these symbols a full system of communication? Not likely. But they were likely used to convey and transmit information to those who knew what the symbols meant. And this could be one place where the development of writing started to take shape.

The St. Germain-la-Rivière teeth – France

Here is a video of Petzinger presenting her findings:

https://www.ted.com/talks/genevieve_von_petzinger_why_are_these_32_symbols_found_in_ancient_caves_all_over_europe

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[Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

[References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

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@krnel
2016-11-16, 8:04pm