40,000-year-old German artifacts may display written language precursor | Reuters

For example, crosses were found only on tools and animal figurines, but not on human figurines.
The researchers analyzed more than 200 Stone Age artifacts that bore these signs, dating from about 43,000 to 34,000 years ago, from four cave sites in southwestern Germany associated with a culture called the Aurignacian. The Adorant figurine, for instance, came from Geissenklösterle Cave in Germany’s Baden-Württemberg state, and measured about 1-1/2 inches (38 mm) by half an inch (12 mm).
“The convention to carve certain sign types only into surfaces of certain artifacts must have been handed down over many generations, otherwise we would not find these statistical patterns in the data,” Bentz said.
The goal of the researchers was not to determine the meaning of the signs, which still have not been deciphered.
The Aurignacian culture is associated with some of the oldest-known figurative art. The artifacts analyzed in the research mostly were made of ivory from mammoth tusks, but also from animal bones and antlers. Some of the figures were of animals including mammoths, cave lions and horses as well as creatures apparently blending human and animal traits. There also were various tools, personal ornaments and musical instruments in the form of flutes.
— Read on www.reuters.com/science/40000-year-old-german-artifacts-may-display-written-language-precursor-2026-02-24/