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Earliest "Writing" On 60,000-Year-Old Eggshells
New Scientist reports on research published in PNAS (abstract here) about what may be the earliest writing yet discovered, on eggshells dated to 60,000 years ago. "Since 1999, Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux, France, and his colleagues have uncovered 270 fragments of shell at the Diepkloof Rock Shelter in the Western Cape, South Africa. They show the same symbols are used over and over again, and the team say there are signs that the symbols evolved over 5,000 years. This long-term repetition is a hallmark of symbolic communication and a sign of modern human thinking, say the team. [Another researcher is quoted:] 'Judging from what we know about the evolution of art all over the world, there may have been many [written language] traditions that were born, lasted for some time, and then vanished. This may be one of them, most probably not the first and certainly not the last.'"
Or "I came first" signed by a chicken
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Kilroy will be here
Wrong wrong wrong, it's the prehistoric form of 'best before' date written in an ancient numeral system (similiar to roman numerals).
Turns out it was a shopping list. First item on the list? Eggs.
I still shit in a cave, you insensitive clod!
Unfortunately, they can't; early humans had established a 70,000-year copyright period. And their DMCA takedown notices come by club and bone-tipped arrow.
They show the same symbols are used over and over again, and the team say there are signs that the symbols evolved over 5,000 years. This long-term repetition is a hallmark of symbolic communication and a sign of modern human thinking, say the team.
Indeed, this is quite true and the tradition continues. It's hard to imagine our forebears scratching symbols in eggshell and that one day it would lead to us scratching symbols in kornshell. The shells then were quite fragile, barely able to withstand an errant pointer. A misplaced hash would lead to a shell escape. And don't even get me started on bash. When the ancients were using eggshell, there were many competing mediums. Deer horns and bits of pottery, jade, flecks of obsidian -- they were all prettier and easier to work with. Today it's the same -- there's ruby and perl and a host of others -- but kornshell, and its ancestor eggshell, will always have a place in my heart,
I have examined the shells, and have been able to decipher the images. It reads...
VERY FIRST POST.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were warning each other of Chuck Norris 60,000 years ago.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
why do you think there's only "fragments" left? Chuck Norris was there .
The rooster came first. Then left, not realizing what he had started. Said he'd call, but never did...prehistoric bastard!