The history of writing down thoughts and feelings could be tens of thousands of years older than previously believed, surprising archaeologists who made the discovery.
The researchers discerned patterns of meaning in lines, notches, dots, and crosses on objects like mammoth tusks as old as 45,000 years in caves in Germany.
Traditionally historians date the first written words to proto-cuneiform scripts made around 5,000 years ago in ancient Iraq, or Mesopotamia.
The precise meaning of the symbols in Germany remains a mystery.
The objects are from just before Homo sapiens moved to Europe from Africa where they interacted with Neanderthals.
