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Examples of (a) Upper Paleolithic signs, and characters in three of the early written languages which resemble the Paleolithic marks: (b) Indus Valley signs, (c) Greek (western branch), (d) Runic... Correlation of the symbols found accompanying Magdalenian cave art with symbols from other ancient cultures shows a nearly-complete match, after Forbes and Crowder, "The Problem of Franco-Cantabrian Abstract Signs: Agenda for a New Approach." World Archaeology 10 (1979): 350-66... These illustrations show (a) the collection of symbols that accompany the Magdalenian cave art in France, from 20,000 years ago or less, and characters in three of the early written languages...

Study indicates a correlation between the ancient mural image and date of the Hasan Dagi volcanic eruption. First discovered and excavated in the 1960's by British archaeologist James Mellaart, the world-famous 9,000-year-old Neolithic site of Catälhöyuk in Central Anatolia, Turkey, has provided a unique window on the lives of humans at the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled agriculture societies. Among the spectacular finds was a mural or wall-painting dated to about 6600 BCE and described by its discoverer and others as depicting a volcanic eruption. Arguably regarded as the first map or graphical representation of a landscape, it featured "a...

Chauvet-Pont D'Arc cave, in southern France, is one of the world's oldest and most impressive cave-art sites. Discovered in 1994 and popularized in the Werner Herzog documentary 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams', Chauvet contains hundreds of paintings that were made as early as 37,000 years ago. Fearsome animals such as woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions and bears dominate Chauvet's imagery. But one of its innermost galleries -- named after a giant deer species, Megaloceros, that is depicted there -- also contains a series of mysterious spray-shaped drawings, partly covered by the Megaloceros painting. A nearby gallery holds similar spray imagery, as does...