Overview
- Researchers compiled over 3,000 geometric signs on roughly 260 ivory, bone, and antler objects from Swabian Jura cave sites dated to 34,000–45,000 years ago.
- Famed pieces including the mammoth figurine, the Adorant, and the Lion Man bear repeated sequences of crosses, dots, lines, notches, and other motifs.
- Statistical tests drawn from quantitative linguistics, including entropy measures, reveal structural patterns that closely resemble early Mesopotamian proto-cuneiform.
- The study concludes the marks do not transcribe spoken language but likely encode visual information as a potential precursor to later writing systems.
- Meanings remain unknown, with evidence of stable, object-specific patterning over millennia and the authors urging further targeted investigation.