Proto-writing

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Prewriting.
1
Art of a painted animal at Lascaux[1]
1
Four dots, a possible notation for the lunar months
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Proto-writing consists of visible marks

writing systems, which record the language of the writer.[3]

Paleolithic

Analysis in 2022, led by Bennet Bacon, an amateur archaeologist,

Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings were used to indicate the mating cycle of animals in a lunar calendar, the markings found in over 400 caves across Europe were compared to the mating cycles of the animals with which they were associated, showing a correlation with the month of the year in which the animals depicted in the cave paintings would typically give birth. The markings were 20,000 years old, predating any other equivalent writing systems by 10,000 years.[1][5]

Neolithic

Examples of the Jiahu symbols inscribed on turtle shells, dating to c. 6000 BC[6][7]

Neolithic China

Further information: Neolithic symbols in China

In 2003, turtle shells with

oracle bone inscriptions dating to c. 1200 BC.[8] Others have dismissed this claim as insufficiently substantiated, claiming that simple geometric designs such as those found on the Jiahu shells cannot be linked to early writing.[9]

Neolithic Southeastern Europe

A: samples of carved "signs" on the wooden Dispilio tablet and clay finds from Dispilio, Greece. B: samples of Linear A signs. C: samples of signs on Paleo-European clay tablets.

The wooden Dispilio Tablet bearing inscriptions was unearthed during George Hourmouziadis's excavations of Dispilio in Greece, and have been radiocarbon dated to 5202 BC (± 123 years).[10] It was discovered in 1993 in a Neolithic lakeshore settlement that occupied an artificial island[11] near the modern Greek village of Dispilio on Lake Kastoria in Western Macedonia.

Clay amulet, one of the Tărtăria tablets, dated to c. 5300 BC

The Vinča symbols (6th–5th millennia BC) are an evolution of simple symbols first attested during the 7th millennium BC). Over time, the symbols gradually became more complex, ultimately culminating in the Tărtăria tablets (c. 5300 BC).[12]

Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

During c. 3600 – c. 3200 BC, proto-writing in the Fertile Crescent was gradually evolving into cuneiform, the earliest mature writing system.

Mesopotamia

Further information: Cuneiform § History, and History of Mesopotamia

The

pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. The transitional stage to a writing system proper takes place in the Jemdet Nasr period (c. 3100 BC – c. 2900 BC).[citation needed
]

Egypt

Further information: Egyptian hieroglyphs § History and evolution, and Prehistoric Egypt

A similar development took place in the genesis of the

Sumerian script, and ... probably [were] ... invented under the influence of the latter ...",[13] although it is pointed out and held that "the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy" and that "a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt ..."[14]

Bronze Age

During the Bronze Age, the cultures of the Ancient Near East are known to have had fully developed writing systems, while the marginal territories affected by the Bronze Age, such as Europe, India and China, remained in the stage of proto-writing.[citation needed]

The

Semitic abjad during the Iron Age.[citation needed
]

Typical "Indus script" seal impression showing an "inscription" of five characters

Indian Bronze Age

Main article: Indus script

The Indus script is a symbol system that emerged during the end of the 4th millennium BC in the Indus Valley Civilisation.

European Bronze Age

With the exception of the

Iron Age, derived from the Phoenician alphabet
.

However, there are number of interpretations regarding symbols found on artefacts of the European Bronze Age which amount to interpreting them as an indigenous tradition of proto-writing. Of special interest in this context are the

numerals associated with a lunar calendar.[16][full citation needed
]

Later proto-writing

Even after the Bronze Age, several cultures have gone through a period of using systems of proto-writing as an intermediate stage before the adoption of writing proper. The "

Uyaquk before the development of the Yugtun syllabary (c. 1900).[citation needed
]

African Iron Age

An image of an nsibidi character for welcome
Nsibidi character for "welcome"

Nsibidi is a system of symbols indigenous to what is now southeastern Nigeria. While there remains no commonly accepted exact date of origin, most researchers agree that use of the earliest symbols date back between the 5th and 15th centuries.[17][18] There are thousands of Nsibidi symbols which were used on anything from calabashes to tattoos and to wall designs. Nsibidi is used for the Ekoid and Igboid languages, and the Aro people are known to write Nsibidi messages on the bodies of their messengers.[19]

See also

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 255723053
    .
  2. ISBN 978-0-19-956778-2
    .
  3. PMID 23346575
    .
  4. ^ "Londoner solves 20,000-year Ice Age drawings mystery". BBC News. 2023-01-05. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
  5. ^ Devlin, Hannah (January 5, 2023). "Amateur archaeologist uncovers ice age 'writing' system". The Guardian. France. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
  6. Nature
    (30 April 2003), doi:10.1038/news030428-7 "Symbols carved into tortoise shells more than 8,000 years ago ... unearthed at a mass-burial site at Jiahu in the Henan Province of western China".
  7. ^ Li, X., Harbottle, G., Zhang, J. & Wang, C. 'The earliest writing? Sign use in the seventh millennium BC at Jiahu, Henan Province, China'. Antiquity, 77, 31–44, (2003).
  8. ^ "Archaeologists Rewrite History". China Daily. 12 June 2003..
  9. ISBN 978-0-521-83861-0
    .
  10. S2CID 128879693
    .
  11. ^ Whitley, James. "Archaeology in Greece 2003–2004". Archaeological Reports, No. 50 (2003, pp. 1–92), p. 43.
  12. ISBN 3-406-47998-7
    , p. 20
  13. ^ Geoffrey Sampson, Writing Systems: a Linguistic Introduction, Stanford University Press, 1990, p. 78.
  14. ^ Simson Najovits, Egypt, Trunk of the Tree: A Modern Survey of an Ancient Land, Algora Publishing, 2004, pp. 55–56.
  15. ISBN 3-11-012928-0
    , pp. 207–264.
  16. ^ Sommerfeld (1994:251)
  17. S2CID 57566625
    .
  18. hdl:1903/2416.[permanent dead link
    ]
  19. ISBN 0-677-04380-5
    .
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