Humans first developed complex and information-rich writing around 3000 BC, then Sumerians of southerners Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) invented cuneiform script. But new research suggests that the precursors to writing can be found on sculptures and tools made from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers in Central Europe tens of thousands of years ago.
When modern humans (Homo sapiens) first arrived around Europe 55,000 years agothey brought with them a sophisticated tool culture that included projectile points and drilling implements. Humans began decorate cave walls with geometric shapes, hand stencils and representations of animals, and they decorated their tools and sculptures with geometric signs whose meaning has puzzled archaeologists for decades.
“Our research helps us uncover the unique statistical properties — or statistical fingerprints — of these sign systems, which are an early precursor to writing,” Bentz said in a statement.
The researchers cataloged intentional symbols – lines, dots, crosses, stars, grids and zigzags – carved into a variety of tools and figures, most of which were discovered in previous archaeological excavations in cave sites in Swabian Juraa mountain range in southern Germany. They then used computational techniques to look at the statistical properties of the signs, and discovered that the Paleolithic sequences were comparable to proto-cuneiform in their potential to encode information.
Bentz’s research deals with frequency trends and measurable aspects of signs. (In linguistics, a sign is a physical representation of a concept or meaning.) By statistically examining two sets of signs—in this case, the Paleolithic system and proto-cuneiform—Bentz compared the sign systems to discover similarities and differences.
“Our analyzes show that these character sequences have nothing to do with today’s writing systems,” Bentz said. “The signs on the archaeological objects are often repeated – cross, cross, cross, line, line, line. This kind of repetition is not a feature found in spoken language.”
The Paleolithic hunter-gatherers instead developed a system of symbols comparable to early proto-cuneiform writing, a system created tens of thousands of years later. “In terms of complexity, the character sequences are comparable,” Bentz said.
But while cuneiform developed rapidly in Mesopotamia over the course of a millennium, the Paleolithic sign system researchers discovered remained consistent for nearly 10,000 years.
“The human ability to encode information in signs and symbols was developed over many thousands of years,” Bentz said. “Writing is only one specific form in a wide variety of sign systems.”
The statistical analysis did not reveal what the carved signs meant, although the researchers discovered that figures had a higher “information density” than tools did.
This is not the first research to suggest that the origins of human writing systems date back to the Paleolithic. In a 2023 study, researchers examined dots and lines in 20,000-year-old cave paintings of animals and concluded that they constituted an early calendar. And paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger have claimed that three dozen symbols found in caves around the world show that humans developed an early form of writing at least 40,000 years ago.
The new study includes “two excellent approaches to at least try to confirm that these marks were meaningful beyond being decorative doodles,” said von Petzinger, who was not involved in the study. Scientific American. “The more we can learn about the range of ‘writing’ surfaces and choices about specific images and characters, the more we will be able to learn about this period.”
The researchers continue to look for objects with deliberately made signs to add to their understanding of early human communication.
“Countless tools and sculptures from Paleolithicor Paleolithic, bear intentional character sequences,” Dutkiewicz said in the statement. “There are many character sequences to be found on artifacts. We’ve only just scratched the surface.”
Bentz, C., & Dutkiewicz, E. (2026). Humans 40,000 years ago developed a system of conventional signs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences123(9), e2520385123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2520385123
