From Cave Paintings to the Internet An Annotated Interactive Timeline on the History of Information and Media 70,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE Timeline

Pieces of ochre rock decorated with geometric patterns found at Blombos Cave in South Africa, nearly 200 miles from Cape Town, have been dated to the Middle Stone Age , equivalent to the European Middle Paleolithic, or roughly 70,000 BCE. These may be the earliest known examples of paleolithic art.

According to the website of the Mammoth Genome Project (accessed 11-20-2008), paleolithic ivory sculptures of mammoths from Southwestern Germany date from the Aurignacian period, making them the earliest examples of figurative art in Europe.

N.J. Conard, Palaeolithic ivory sculptures from southwestern Germany and the origins of figurative art, Nature 426 (2003) 830–832.

Most of the earliest recorded information consists of paleolithic cave paintings and Cro-Magnon mobiliary art, including bones with talley marks.

The oldest cave paintings confirmed by radiocarbon dating are in the Chauvet Cave discovered in the Ardeche region of France in 1994. Paintings in the Chauvet Cave date as early as 30,000 BCE.

[In 1970 Alexander Marshack published his innovative Notation dans les gravures du Paléelithique Supérieur. He argued that talley marks on certain bones represented a system of proto-writing based on the employment of previous marks to generate, on the same object, secondary and tertiary markings, which Marshack called “the concept of variable image use and reuse.” Marshack expanded upon these ideas in his book, The Roots of Civilization (1972) In the course of his investigations Marshack developed microscopic methods of analysis, and infra-red and ultra-violet techniques that showed the precise sequencing and internal structure of the apparently uniform sets of markings on Paleolithic objects.]

Mathematics begins with the earliest records of attempts to quantify time. The Ishango Bone, a notched talley stick discovered in the Congo (Zaire) in 1960 by Jean de Heinzelin de Braucourt, and now preserved in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, represents, according to Alexander Marschak, a six-month lunar calendar. It is among the earliest known mathematical objects. Other lunar calendars from about the same date have been discovered on other bones such as the Isturitz Baton, and in cave paintings in Lascaux and elsewhere. The Lemombo Bone, another lunar calendar, may date from as early as 35,000 BCE.

"There are no certain ways to date individual cylcons. The oldest cylcon/message stone found in a dateable archaeological context is about 20,000 years old. The simple line motifs of the oldest cylcons represent the earliest art of the Aborigines, from a very early period of occupation. In Australian nomenclature this is the colonizing period, or early Stone Age, ca. 50,000/40,000-3,000 BC. With the earliest rock-carvings and -paintings, the cylcons represent the oldest form of communication and art; and they represent the oldest religion still observed. Only 2 Aborigines have been able to communicate their name of the cylcons: Yurda, and Wommagnaragnara (Heart of the snake), respectively. Other uses as tallies are possible, such as counting of dead people, warriors, emus, measures of nardo seeds, or mapping purposes counting day-marches in various directions. Later the use could also change to other magic rituals, some involving the chipping off smaller flakes, and the practical use for pounding and crushing. Much more research is needed before the cylcons' real age and significance can be properly understood and appreciated.

"The term cylcon is derived from the title of R. Ethridge's publication: The Cylindro-conical and Stone Implements of Western New South Wales and their significance. Ethnological Series No. 2, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of New South Wales, 1916:1-41." (Schoyen Collection MS 5087/15.

Map-making appears to predate written language. What may be the oldest map in the world, discovered in Ukraine in 1966, may date from about this time. Inscribed on a mammoth tusk, the map was found in Mezhirich, Ukraine. It has been interpreted to show dwellings along a river.