The First Writing
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2023
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
The results of a groundbreaking new study were released today [January 5th] by a group of researchers who believe they have conclusively decoded the earliest known form of proto-writing. Dating back to the Palaeolithic era, this combination of abstract markings and ice age art decorates over 600 locations across Europe and have long fascinated archaeologists and enthusiasts alike.
In today's episode Tristan is joined by one of the team behind this marvel, Professor Paul Pettitt from the University of Durham. Paul talks Tristan through the team's hard work and perseverance of this mammoth task - and helps shine a light on what this study means for our understanding of Ice Age cultures.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Entrance on History Hit. |
| 0:12.9 | I'm Tristan Husey, your host and welcome back. |
| 0:15.5 | It's 2023, I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. |
| 0:20.6 | And on the Entrance, we like to kick off the New Year with a bang, with an absolute |
| 0:26.1 | cork of an episode. |
| 0:28.0 | And I'm pleased to say that I don't think we're going to disappoint you today because |
| 0:32.1 | we're talking all about the first writing. |
| 0:35.3 | And today, the 5th of January, it's a big day for this topic because the results of |
| 0:41.6 | a new study have just been published, have just been released. |
| 0:46.1 | This is groundbreaking breaking news. |
| 0:50.1 | It's the announcement that this group of incredible researchers, they think that they |
| 0:55.6 | deduced the earliest known form of writing, proto-writing of modern humans, of homo sapiens |
| 1:04.4 | dating back more than 10,000 years ago, deep into the ice age, into the Paleolithic, the |
| 1:11.2 | time of hunter-gatherers. |
| 1:13.7 | We're going to be talking about these abstract marks that I've been found alongside |
| 1:18.0 | many incredible depictions of ancient animals. |
| 1:22.5 | With cave art, think of places like the incredible lasco cave, chauvet, outamera, etc., etc. |
| 1:29.6 | Well alongside many of these depictions of Paleolithic, of ice age animals, largely of prey, |
| 1:36.1 | they found these abstract markings. |
| 1:38.2 | And for a long time, people have been trying to deduce what these markings meant. |
| 1:42.7 | Well now this team, they think they've done it. |
| 1:45.4 | They think they've figured out this very, very, the earliest form of writing that we can't |
... |
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