Overview
- Peer-reviewed findings published in PNAS on Feb. 23 report that Paleolithic sign sequences from Germany’s Swabian Jura show measurable structure comparable to the earliest proto-cuneiform tablets.
- The team digitized more than 3,000 marks on about 260 Aurignacian-era objects, including ivory figurines like the Vogelherd mammoth, the Adorant plaquette, and the Lion Man.
- Statistical measures of repetition, predictability and entropy indicate information density closely overlapping with early proto-cuneiform, yet clearly distinct from modern scripts that encode speech.
- The authors stress the marks do not represent spoken language; meanings remain unresolved, though sign use shows stable conventions over roughly 10,000 years before disappearing.
- Patterns include crosses on animal figurines and tools but not on human figures, and dots on humans and lions but not on tools, with researchers calling for broader comparisons at other sites.