[SunkenCiv]

This link won’t work for me, has an outlandish claim (7000 BC writing in China) that I just must look at later:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/earliest-writing-sign-use-in-the-seventh-millennium-bc-at-jiahu-henan-province-china/6DDB3E0583ACB6896B3DBCAC143FA846

[BobL]

Yea, that’s quite a while ago. The link gets me to the abstract...then they want $25 for the paper.

[Reily]

The abstract

Early Neolithic graves at Jiahu, Henan Province, China, include tortoise shells which are incised with signs – some of which anticipate later Chinese characters and may be intended as words. Is this the earliest writing? The authors decide rather that the signs in this very early period performed as symbols connected with ritual practice, but they presage a long period of sign use which led eventually to a writing system.

The link since you said it didn’t work for you.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/earliest-writing-sign-use-in-the-seventh-millennium-bc-at-jiahu-henan-province-china/6DDB3E0583ACB6896B3DBCAC143FA846

Note looks the same to me as what you posted.