How Cave Arts Transformed Storytelling, Writing, and Organizing Information, Forever..

Humans have been storytellers since we acquired the ability to speak. We started making complex sounds around 2 million years ago but were only able to communicate using language 200,000 years ago. Potentially, we have been telling stories through sign language, gestures, and expressions!

Why do we care about stories? What does it unlock in our minds that no other form can?

Stories help us find order in things and make sense of events around us. They aid us in sharing information, which, if presented as dry facts, would be forgotten. To some extent, they allow us to see how others think and feel, helping us empathize.

Although we were communicating, we soon understood the importance of knowledge sharing as a means for growing our cultures or simply as a way to store valuable information – be it a method for hunting, a historic volcanic eruption, or a tale of a tyrannical king!

We resorted to art for this purpose. The Chauvet cave in France is the oldest representation of storytelling found thus far, dating back to 36,000 years ago. The cave paintings are believed to tell the story of a volcanic eruption.

Later forms of visual storytelling can be found in Egyptian hieroglyphics from around 3,000 B.C., which mixed pictographic symbols and sounds to tell a story.

Around 700 B.C., evidence of the first recorded stories emerged, including the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad by Homer. The fact that these stories were recorded enabled them to spread quickly and widely across the world.

The oldest discovered drawing was found in Blombos Cave, South Africa, and dates back to 70,000 BCE. It was a simple stone showing cross-hatch lines (today you'd call it a hash symbol).

However, it's not what the drawing conveyed that's significant, but rather, it hinted at something bigger – it is the first evidence of the ability of early humans to store information outside of the human brain.

By 1800 BC, we had mastered visual information sharing, but it was not optimized. After all, ancient humans were innovators, so why would they settle for less efficient methods or tools?

Writing began with pictographs (picture words) drawn into clay with a pointed tool. These clay objects were called "tablets." Tablets like these helped local leaders organize, manage, and archive information. Writing evolved when someone decided to replace the pointed drawing tool with a triangular reed stylus. The reed could be pressed easily and quickly into clay to make wedges. At first, the wedges were grouped to make pictures, but slowly the groups evolved into more abstract signs and became the sophisticated script we call cuneiform ("wedge-shaped" in Latin).

Some of the earliest writing systems, such as Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, incorporated pictographic elements influenced by the visual language of cave art. These scripts kept evolving, and different cultures started adopting their own scripts — Proto-Elamite script, Indus script, Oracle bone script, et al.

We began relying more on written information and used these tablets to store and share all sorts of information pieces — accounting details, marriage contracts, historical events, hunting methodologies — all were literally written in stone!

Believe it or not, being able to write on these tablets was the 'cool thing' at that time. It was a skill that was not taught to many, and it meant those who knew it were the elites of that era. Professional writers of cuneiform were called "tablet writers" — scribes. It was not because scribing was a difficult skill to learn, but because writing held political importance for empires.

Less-committed students might end up making an uncertain living writing common incantations. Working harder could lead to a prosperous life composing legal documents — or even writing correspondence for a royal court. Those who persevered could become scholars with knowledge of mathematics, medicine, religious ritual, divination, laws, and mythology, or even authors of literature.

The art, gestures, expressions, oral communication, epics, storyboards (tablets) — all of this led to the creation of a new art form: Performing Arts! Athens, the cultural center of ancient Greece, was the focal point of this theatrical tradition.

The Greek theatrical tradition evolved from ancient storytelling practices, including the recitation of epic poetry and the performance of choral lyrics at religious festivals honoring gods like Dionysus. The earliest known evidence of Greek theater dates back to the 6th century BCE, with the introduction of the first actor (hypokrites) by the poet Thespis, considered the founder of Greek tragedy.

Comedy also evolved from the ritualistic performances and satirical skits known as the "Comedies of the Golden Age" that mocked prominent figures and addressed social and political issues. The first known comedian and playwright of ancient Greek comedy was Aristophanes, whose earliest surviving works include "The Acharnians" (425 BCE) and "The Knights" (424 BCE).

The comedies of Aristophanes and his contemporaries not only entertained audiences but also served as a means of social commentary and criticism, reflecting the vibrant storytelling and theatrical traditions of ancient Greek culture.

Art led to storytelling, and later, as humans started to settle down, the need for information storing arose, leading to the development of writing. If we look at this today, they still serve the same purpose – storytelling is now an expanded art form across multiple platforms, while writing is for storing thoughts or ideas.

From temples to caves to mythological scripts — information surrounds us everywhere!

But why did we ever need these? As humans started to settle down in their communities and cultures, they understood the limitations of our brain – the difficulties faced in keeping records, validating contracts, defining rules, sharing knowledge with the next generation – all needed information capture and retrieval.

But didn't humans evolve to develop our brain to capture, store, connect, and retrieve information? Yes, we did, but why can't we still do all of it without storing information outside of our brain?

Until next time…