Mysterious marks on Ice Age cave artwork might have been a type of file maintaining

As far again as roughly 25,000 years in the past, Ice Age hunter-gatherers might have jotted down markings to speak details about the habits of their prey, a brand new examine finds.
These markings embrace dots, traces and the image “Y,” and sometimes accompany pictures of animals. Over the final 150 years, the mysterious depictions, some courting again practically 40,000 years, have been present in tons of of caves throughout Europe.
Some archaeologists have speculated that the markings would possibly relate to maintaining observe of time, however the particular function has remained elusive (SN: 7/9/19). Now, a statistical evaluation, printed January 5 in Cambridge Archeological Journal, presents proof that previous folks might have been recording the mating and birthing schedule of native fauna.
By evaluating the marks to the animals’ life cycles, researchers confirmed that the variety of dots or traces in a given picture strongly correlates to the month of mating throughout all of the analyzed examples, which included aurochs (an extinct species of untamed cattle), bison, horses, mammoth and fish. What’s extra, the place of the image “Y” in a sequence was predictive of delivery month, suggesting that “Y” signifies “to give birth.”
The discovering is among the earliest data of a coherent notational system, the researchers say. It signifies that folks on the time had been capable of interpret the which means of an merchandise’s place in a sequence and plan forward for the distant future utilizing a calendar of kinds — reinforcing the suggestion that they had been able to advanced cognition.

2023-01-27 09:00:00 Mysterious marks on Ice Age cave artwork might have been a type of file maintaining
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