One major problem with our interpretation of this cave art is the way that we are lighting them when we take pictures or other recordings of them. Ancient hominins from the period would have had some kind of open flame lantern. It has been demonstrated by other scholars that the combination of an open flame light source, the art, and the contours of the rock on which they are written produced a kind of rudimentary animation, or 3D storyboard. To fully understand the purpose of ancient cave markings requires more culturally and materially relativistic investigation.

What if they were just the first tripadvisor reviews? “Great cave - bad wifi - good ventilation - stayed for 3 nights - i’ll rate it 5 fingers”

I read her book, First Signs. It's really fascinating and worth looking at. Her idea to catalog abstract markings in ancient inscriptions across Europe to try to assign meaning is unique and gives evidence of very extensive social organization among people in the remote past.

Imagine thousands of years into the future. An alien archaeologist (or perhaps a creature evolved from meerkats) is trying to work out what "keep left", "hard hat mandatory" and "no tumble dry" symbols mean. The word "ritual" will no doubt occur.

That green door the cavemen installed was functional, yet festive.

When I'm in a cave I often find myself wondering wtf am I doing in a cave?

I would like to pose the possibility that they were the map of the cave system. Cave systems can be very confusing but a mark that says that way to the opening would be essential.

I'm imagining that these symbols were written all over the place but they only survived in caves.

The caves were the closest things that early man had to a refrigerator. The kids drawings always end up in the refrigerator.

Geez people, often the presenters here aren't professional speakers, they're specialists in their respective fields. Cut them some slack, they're brave for speaking in front of a room full of people, not as easy as it looks.

Not only are the 32 symbols barely discussed, but the question about why they are so widespread is only addressed as “that is a story for another lecture”. C-

Prehistoric cave art is awesome...I’m gonna paint the basement.

The emotion she is going through the talk shows how passionate she is about her work! Love and respect. ❤

"Why always in cave?" Simple answer: The others outside where washed away by rain!

I think it is important to back away from the idea that these people were a little dimmer than we are. I think it is important, also, to use common sense. The vertical lines engraved in the wall looked to me like somebody started sharpening needles or something similar, and others used the striations down over the years, deepening the grooves. Sometimes I think that academics get caught up in how grand their theories are and how important they are and forget that folks were just living their lives. You can't go very deep analyzing tagging on box-cars. Sometimes it's good art, and sometimes it's a person clearing out their spray-can nozzle.

The caves in SW France were like condominiums. Warm secure with high ceilings and walls to paint on the way we hang pictures. I visited Peche-Merle and was amazed by the beautiful paintings of fish horses ‘bison’ and hand prints like signatures and a river running through. A true underworld and the origin of later Styx and Homeric underworld of Classical mythology.

Why did this ted talk seem like the entire thing was an introduction then, when you think she is going to start talking about it in detail, the talk ends....

i really hoped we would see the 32 symbols more than just a peek.

I have seen petroglyphs from the Arizona and New Mexico deserts that is incredibly similar. Tick marks, deer and bison, spirals, rectangles. No cave involved and carved not painted but the symbols are the same.

Fascinating. Great to hear someone speak so knowledgeably and with such enthusiasm. Great talk. Thank you.

I'm almost certain that one of those signs meant "Woah let's remember the time when we totally almost died fighting that mammoth."

Just occurred to me while watching (for the second time, as I saw it few years back already): first, as little as I know, if people were equipped with only the torch (with some pitch), there would be lot of soot on the roof of the ceiling. I believe this wasn't always the case, so I'm rather thinking they used to bring the material for making the fire and lit a fire that lasted several hours. A follow-up thought is, what in the world these people do in such remote parts of caves for so long? My memory suggested a solution: for example, the Native Americans had an initiation ritual where young men on the brink of adulthood went to a remote place to keep vigil and dream and follow their dreams. When they kept vigil for several days and nights (plus ate who knows what mushrooms or herbs which could have brought the visions even more reliably and sooner), they got dreams/visions and they remembered them. Then they went back to their tribe and let their shaman know and he would help them interpret the dreams. On the basis of this, they got their warrior name, and searched for some essence of that dream and when found, prepared it and made their own "medicine" that they wore in a pouch hanging around their neck. So, what if these places were likewise the places of their young men's vigil or initiation rites? What if the pictures on the wall were the expression of their dreams and visions?

It is possible that this is something like convergence. The symbols are often quite basic . . . triangles, circles, zigzag. These can represent mountains, the sun or moon, and lightning. These could have arisen in isolated, groups that did not contact each other. Given the limited media available, there may well be an element of inherent symbology in us . . . particularly drawing from the natural world.

As an artist, amateur historian and very amateur archeologist, I so envy those who have this privilege of studying this puzzle!

All I could think about when I watched this video was "hobo" signs. Perhaps signs telling others of what benefits or dangers lurked in the surroundings, like a treasure map for a transient population. It certainly points to a certain level of awareness that separate "others" might benefit from this knowledge. I am a not at all familiar with this area of study though, so I could just be restating the obvious.

Man that hand print shown near the start of the video really got to me for some reason. It’s like our ancestors telling the harsh world, “We are here, and we’re here to stay.”

Even during the opening few lines, I cannot but smile at the TED-like manner of presenting an interesting topic. TED Talks may have fed our hunger for exploring and for learning. The cost for this was the TED-ification of its speakers.

We wouldn’t be the first people to “discover” these examples of cave art. Something inscribed in a cave 10,000 years ago would’ve likely been discovered a few years after it was written down, and then a decade later, and then a thousand years later again, and so on. Perhaps this is how the graphic ‘lingo’ spread across the Eurasian continent.

maybe the cave floors weren't so high 40k years ago. lotsa water could have flowed through since then and added dirt to the cave....

I find it funny that these brilliant scientists always forget to ask the most basic questions. If you're 250m under the ground without any of the technologies we have access to today, I'm sure a large portion of the symbols goes towards knowing your position and finding your way back to the surface. I once went deep into the ground with two friends in Mexico. We had a Mexican boy as our guide who was about 14 years old. He had around 10 lamps in his bag and pointed out that if we ran out of light there we were all going to die for sure. It might seem logical when you're reading this but it becomes far more significant when you're deep down in that cave. I simply can't imagine how these people got that deep without any battery powered lamps, but I can imagine how much effort they put into getting back out. So why wasn't this brought up in this video as an explanation of the purpose of some of these symbols?

Animals are unmistakeable, with so few lines they depict the 'form' in a way that few artists today could achieve. What have we lost?

I am still waiting for the next episode of this talk !

These people were nomadic wanderers. There are some things all wanderers need to know - where locally to find food, shelter, medicine, women to name a few. Whether it was caves, or at the shores of distant ports, or more modern hobo symbology, cross-language boundaries were broken with symbols that represented the basic needs that could be found/fulfilld in the area.

I lived in Morocco and I married there. My husband was the only one in the family who spoke English. When he went to the store or went to work all of us communicated and laughed at the same time and knew what the other person meant even though we didn't have a common language. I had learned quite a bit of conversational Arabic a lot of it was Moroccan Arabic known as darija but his family had no even working knowledge of English. We seemed not to need it in the evenings we spent out on the porch under the family olive tree. We entertained each other and we communicated in a way that we all understood I never knew before how many symbols I could make with my hands! :-)

THANK YOU for rigorously documenting these geometric shapes. What an oversight that it has not been done. Great job.

She and her husband toiled to capture and analyse them. Laudable effort indeed.

The 32 symbols were standard on early keyboards.

Super fascinating! I often wonder about the histories that occurred long before we were able to share them with future generations. Your work is so important. Thank you for sharing this!

Things you write on cave walls are also very easy to quickly sketch in dirt, sand, or snow. Thus, much innovation was likely allowed to develop, and spread far beyond the mouths of the caves where we find them now.

Excellent research and video! It's nice to have on-going efforts of this type.

Why all the dislikes???... what people were expecting?... I don't care about others but I find this fascinating. Thanks for the great work!

The comment section - while funny to read- is telling us: we’re not that far away from the cavemen...

Very interesting video. The origins of art and the written word. Enjoyed this very much.Thank you TED and Genevieve von Petzinger.

They were travelling, from what I recall the earliest known skeletal remains in Spain/Portugal are thought to be travellers from northern Europe.

When I'm in a cave, I often find myself wondering: "Why am I in a cave? This is 2015"

Thank you for taking the time to explore and document these early artworks. I'd also like to thank you for doing the presentation. Great information and very interesting...

Decades Ago I visited caves All over the world. I am not trained in this field ( but I knew then it was Very Very important to Document all of the signs symbols from everyone in the whole world and put the pictures in a study guide. Aka Book for future reference and study something draws me to believe we will someday figure all of it out and we need to know Why as A Human we are Naturally curious. I know I got a double dose of curiosity. Anyway our very existence may depend on finding out what our Ancestors were trying to tell us

Very interesting talk. Can't wait to hear more from you as you decifer more. Thank You, from Texas!

It’s up to Weyland-Yutani to fund an expedition to find out what the engravings mean.

Deep respect for this woman's work.

Spoken language and graphic representation almost certainly develop alongside each other. "Tree dawn hunt" has a clear meaning and can be represented in three signs. Everything else is embellishment, even in spoken language.

I've always gotten the impression that 2 seperate species were leaving each other messages on the walls of caves with the art they were leaving behind. 1 group could have left a design that was meaningful to theyre group and another, seprate civilisation would come across it then leave their symbols, whether it was their abnormal handprints that they traced on to the walls or depictions of the creatures they fed from.

So humans were originally limited to 32 emojis?

She has a therapeutic voice, I can listen to her podcast every night before going to sleep.

I really liked this. The instructor/researcher made points that were very insightful: the total collective characteristics and the small numbers of region-born symbols. I really liked the conclusion whereby Dr. Boyajian said this shows the advent of formal languages and a part of this evolution of communication, most likely, was. Too, she hints that the symbols thro out Europe were based on another step from whence the cave symbols came from. I guess most of the population at that time, lived in caves and they talked and depicted their life's experiences, cooked and ate in the cave homes. I wonder if we will ever get to the point of correctly knowing what each symbol really represented and how they early thought, considering, I guess, early drives we still have to hunt, to communicate, to love (?) or care, to have recognition, to be understood and remembered, to make a mark of our existence. etc. I really feel convinced that advanced civilizations have lived on earth for millions of years and were probably extinguished. The population of the caves had somehow begun to scratch a new civilization without formalized intelligence, infrastructure, books, or machines, but the primitive grit of going on and doing a community from herds of others, perhaps, and from nature only. Amazing! Thanks for your study!

10:00 (a) Bird (b) Bird doing ballet (c) Bird on LSD

Love how she speaks, she is really clear yet passionate. Amazing so few different signs originally but back then they probably only had a limited vocabulary. Would like to hear if she has looked at the San cave art in Africa which goes back 50,000 years and is also fascinating.

I really love your description and really good aptitude for storytelling. You're a wonderful speaker. I'm definitely jealous of your job because that is the best job I could think of at least one of them! Well all right so I'm just going to say this you know I I did study anthropology undergraduate but that was a lifetime ago. I maintain an interest. You know I'm probably sure that in the framing of what you said about how the climate was in the tundra and the glaciers but you've at least put yourself in the perspective of those early hominids and humans in that environment and realize that often times they used those caves as refuge like we do if there's a blizzard for a hurricane and I'm pretty sure you have an idea that sometimes they use those caves like wolves and dogs and bears use to house their young when they go off to acquire food. So you you mentioned I don't know what would cause someone to get this deep in this low and make this graphic mark on the wall? I don't know I mean I put myself in that situation as you were talking and I thought huh well and that's tight space it was probably a child and could be they were blocked in there for a long time if there was a storm or some kind of thing they were avoiding for a stretch of time kid gets bored picks up a stick and starts making a mark That's I don't know the thought that creeps up into my mind and not very tight space that you were in the only communication that Mark could make with another is someone else who would go in there and if it was a kid or someone else who might be hiding out in that environment you'll probably be a sibling another child I think that the bigger spaces you know maybe the kid is mimicking with the parents are doing on the rest of the wall maybe they're counting days it could be a way to mark how long a blizzard might be for it could just be a mark of boredom but you know when we do doodles there are repetitions I mean I used to be a big doodler and I used to repeat signs a lot but I'm sure there's not only commonality with my work over time but I'm sure some of the things that I have written were so basic that they were repeated by other people and I never communicated with them. Anyway these are the thoughts that came to mind when you were talking. I think that all I'm saying is that work is extremely important but maybe you might be jumping to the wrong conclusions or making it sound more mysterious than it should be. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions I don't know but I mean really all we can do is speculate. I think the first surviving alphabet that affected every other alphabet there's a Phoenicians to see people's probably had something to do with it and you know you know Spain and France and Italy are all along the Mediterranean I don't know you know that could be the antecedent of the sea peoples that's an interesting idea. Not every riding is inspired a lot of it can be just out of boredom and that significant too this is all significant no matter what the reasoning behind it is. We have to remember we have to remember that when when we talk about human discoveries oftentimes it does involve boredom and accidents. You know a doodle can become a work of art it can start off as just a mark on the wall and then inspiration comes I could have taken thousands of years for that mark to become a work apart but we also can't assume that everybody who picked up a stick or created pain or marked the wall and whatever way they could wasn't adult or doing so with a preconceived notion of communicating or even creating anything that someone else might understand. These markings remind me of markings that you see in like movies about people who are planning to defend themselves or attack somebody in dirt or sand and they're explaining something another group you know a TED Talk from the Stone age 🤩 Okay so I just had this like really funny idea know my name is Deborah and in Hebrew that means honey bee and it made me think when I was thinking about the early humans or hominids congregating in these caves I was thinking of bees and how they will go back to the hive after kind of a truck and then they will go back to the hive in and tell everybody else where they found whatever and then they'll do a dance I'll be dance that gives them the exact location of of a source of pollen. No I mean these markings could be you know some kind of communication that's vital I think would be either vital or bored it's like the only thing that can really come to mind because you know not many people can get into these caves it's not like you have whole communities you probably have families and maybe maybe a couple of generations or aunts & uncles and cousins together but you know we're not talking about even a hundred people congregating these are small groups in these caves. I think language systems only work when you're talking about communities of families who have to defend themselves from other communities of other families I think that's when we get language I think when you get to art for art sake you know that takes quite a bit of imagination and skill and I would say that that would probably have to go inside with the most purposeful task which is to create tools but you have an idea what you want ahead of time see you envision it. I think I do that all the time anybody goes to home Depot with a project in their mind does that I think it's a very human thing to have that kind of concept and see it too fruition or not in my case not. I think doodles can inspire that kind of happening. I'm so happy that somebody's actually looking at this and studying it and marking it down excuse the pun. This is so truly fascinating work. One thing that can be done to coincide with this work is to watch two and a half to four year olds and how they doodle and Mark and create art for the first time when they start to pick up a pen or pencil or marker or crayon and they start making markings with either paint or tools like markers and pencils. I think it would be interesting to just watch what they do in a sandbox what they do when they get bored. I do think that we are reaching into the deep recesses of human existence and behavior and sometimes it's right in front of us.

This deserves 2 awards 1. Most interesting Ted talk in the last decade. 2. Most Canadian girl in history 👍🏻🇨🇦

Much of what we need to know is lost forever. Under water, completely destroyed, hidden on purpose, or lost in translation. I hope we further work on Gobecki Tepe.

I wish she would have gone in more in depth into the symbols themselves, but still very interesting. Good video! But when she asked 'why was someone in that low ceiling cave? It got me to thinking: So here are my theories in no particular order: 1. Defense would be a logical use for caves [One way in/out, defensible while eliminating flank assaults] 2. Protection from the most extreme or hostile elements [Heatwave, tornadoes, etc] 3. Since most caves are a near constant cool temperature depending on proximity to the equator. In most cases it would have been a good place to assist in the preservation of food. [it would spoil more slowly there, removed from the sun, pests, etc] 4. We all strive to have 'a place to call home', so what better choice than one pre-made and [in most cases] impervious to the elements 5. And lets not forget the coolest things about caves.... man! what an echo!

Ask the Basque people (in English 😏)

It seems clear that they originated from the same tribe/people, knew a language, and shared symbols. As they migrated and arrived, they marked the caves as a sign they were there. One of those signs or symbols may have been different from each cave so they can identify who made it.

I had no trouble understanding her, and I thoroughly enjoyed the talk. Very informative.

When you're social distanced in an ice age, you doodle.

great speech, theme is very interesting and with superb orator, one small detail, somebody should provide a glass of water for the speakers

I can think of few things more terrifying than being in a narrow cave a quarter of a mile underground. Im grateful there are people willing tk look in these places, but count me out...

Theyre hobo signs ("Mean cops in this town") ("Nice Lady lives here") left by hobo sapiens

You call them cave men, I call them survivors of a cataclysmic event :)

I love this. The passion and dedication shown to an overlooked area of our early pre-history. It's so fascinating, the symbols so tantalising and enigmatic, yet familiar too. I just wonder what they were carving onto wood at the same time, that has been lost to time. A bit like stonehenge being a representation in stone of a much older and perishable wooden architecture.

This was from 2015. I'd really like to hear any updates this researcher has to offer.

This is a great talk. I love to hear what drives people to discover new things. I think it must be incredible to spend time inside these places.

This is why I am so damn proud to be human. We create things, we have crazy ideas about how things could be and we are capable of learning. Too bad most humans would rather forget and just watch TV when there's so much potential just waiting to be unleashed.

These are maps and messages among varied people without language. Yep. Not art--they just happen to be beautiful to us today.

In The southwest deserts of the USA there are drawings and carvings on rocks made by the first people. Fascinating.

In the mid 1990’s, my husband and I owned an import and export business (home and garden decor). I designed several of our items and we had them manufactured in China. On one of the many trips I took to China, we were at a factory in the mid-northern part of China far away from any cities, save for a very small village which had no infrastructure (running water, electricity, paved roads) except for the factory which had electricity from a large generator and cold tap water along with one “outhouse” with a hole in the ground). There were mountains around us that had wide long steps carved into the sides of the mountains over centuries. These steps were used as apple orchards. When I had finished my portion of business, my translator and I went up to the orchards, which were maintained by 1 old man who lived in a very small shack (smaller than an average household bathroom). He picked up a flashlight and told us to follow him. He took us to a cave and as we got further back, we were crouching to fit the passage way. He shined the light on the walls and ceiling of the cave and there were so many drawings, nothing I could understand though (and no writing or numbers), they were extremely primitive drawings. He told us that no one knew about these caves and the drawings, no academia had ever studied them. I was in awe. My translator took several pictures of them and later transferred them to a floppy disk and gave me the disk before leaving. Unfortunately, the floppy disk ended up getting sand in it (I have no idea how) and my pictures were lost forever. Still, the experience was incredible and one I’m grateful to have enjoyed. I often wonder if the caves were ever studied (I can’t find anything online about them).

Tagging goes way back.

Look forward to learning how this information grows. The remarkable part is that these repeated and consistent graphics persist over tens of thousands years from Ice Age to Paleolithic to Neolithic, some in folkloric decorations to the early 19th century. reappearing on stone, ivory, and pottery as well as caves.

The deeper they went into a cave the warmer the earth would be , this was during an ice age after all .

What an amazing job she has. Getting to see the first steps of becoming a thinking Human. Thank you so much for you effort, truly amazing and deserving of respect.

Sign, sign, everywhere are signs. Blocking out the scenery and blowing my mind.

Great video, interesting topic for sure!!! Great presentation by speaker, thank you so so much, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Bradford rock paintings are so old they can't be dated so at least +40thousand years. The interesting thing is that they are more advanced in description and technique than paintings thousands of years later.

I could listen to her talk for hours. Her voice is so soothing.

Earliest human trolling. "Spray paint your butt on Grog's wall." Archeologist: "These are complex thinkers, evolving highly developed communication skills to stay alive..."

Few symbols means some kind of importance I know that Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970) only had small cotact with anthropologists.But his "Hierarchy of needs" could be used in this context. Cos what if some of the symbols were used to indicate what status the cave was(owner or free) and the next 2 the first 2 stages(Physiological needs, Safety needs).

For me, it's always the hands. "I am here." We don't know who they were, but we know they were there. And are still.

It's very obvious that there were fully written languages and mathematics at least 9,000 to 15,000 years ago. We have structures around the world that attest to that. These monuments weren't constructed with only verbal communication

...sharing is caring.....💕🙏...thanks for putting yourself out there....may you continue to have the energy and freedom to inform, educate and enlighten 🙏✨

It's equally interesting what she does NOT say. No mention of the ubiquitous svastika.

Fascinating talk! Archeologist Marija Gimbutas has interesting interpretations of these symbols as well. Her study of Catal Huyek is very intriguing. In Canada, Selwyn Dewdney's study of First Nations rock paintings is also interesting. Does anyone know of a comparison of all the worldwide rock painting symbols?

Having seen some of this Europe and many in the southwest the similarities are unmistakable.

The paintings were done by the ancient Basque people (southern France & northern Soain) living in caves during the ice age. The outside world was inhospitable. In Basque mythology, heaven was a warm place under the ground. Spirits of the dead came from underground through the tunnels to visit the living. The living kept them at bay by always having a fire lit at the entrance to the cave. The cave paintings are messages to the dead, requests for a good hunt, etc. They were done by the women. They were in the farthest reaches of the tunnels so the spirits of the dead could see them.

30-40k years ago and suddenly the hand drawings appear on the walls. Like a neuron fired to recognize the self and possibly to develop the same. Seeds of ambition and creativity. But to appear at several scattered sites is mind blowing. Like a cosmic/universal conciousness.

It’s crazy to see them having drawn such precise rectangles when they perhaps had no visual reference of a rectangle at that point in time.

While the stories have many stylistic flaws, Jean Auel's "Earth's Children" series interestingly described the culture that Genevieve described from her different viewpoint. If you assume wide-ranging human migration, if the artists migrated, their art could be reproduced at many places and that would account for the scope of her findings.

If you went into that cave and slithered along with inches between the ceiling and floor . . . . . You are braver than me.

To answer the first question of what were they doing so deep in a cave that you crawled through, 1. The caves aren't the same now as they once were, 2. As you said, it was the ice age. Deeper means less cold wind. In addition, I would love to see you compare the Voynich Manuscript to the cave drawing database. Thanks you both for your work.

Wow. This totally blew me away. Fantastic research.

There has been great evolution in the written language. From 32 symbols written on cave walls in Spain 5000 years ago to the modern era, when man can post stupid comments to videos on KZfaq. 5000 years from now, some archeologist will unearth an I phone. But he will not be able to see the stupid comment because the battery will be dead.