Ice Age crosses and lines turned out to be an ordered system of symbols

This is stated in a new study by linguist Christian Benz (Saarland University) and archaeologist Ewa Dutkiewicz (Berlin Museum of Prehistory).

The scientists studied more than 3,000 symbols on some 260 objects 34,000-45,000 years old. These are mostly dots, notches, lines, crosses, which are repeated in rows. Many of the finds are from the Swabian Alb caves in southwest Germany, a region known for Ice Age art.

The team didn't try to figure out exactly what the signs meant. Instead, they compared them "mathematically": how complex the sequences are, how predictably the elements repeat, and how much information they could theoretically convey.

The result was unexpected: by the level of "information density" these ancient sequences are similar to a very early protocline writing - the predecessor of cuneiform from Mesopotamia (about IV-III millennium BC). The researchers note that both there and here the signs are often repeated.

The authors also report that such signs on figurines are on average "more meaningful" than on instruments. But the work does not give a precise answer to what exactly "recorded" Palaeolithic people, it may be a count, marks about events, belonging to a thing or something else.