zero zone: History of Writing and way of communication

Thursday, August 21, 2025

History of Writing and way of communication

The history and prehistory of writing are as long as the history of civilization itself. Indeed the development of communication by writing was a basic step in the advance of civilization.

Yet writing is little more than 5,000 years old. The oldest writings that have come down to the present day are inscriptions on clay tablets made by the Sumerians in about 3100 bc. The Sumerians lived in Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Egyptians in the Nile River valley developed writing about 100 to 200 years later (see Egypt, ancient).

Writing is sometimes spoken of as humankind’s greatest invention. It was developed by many people in various locations over a prolonged period. The identity of the individuals responsible for the major steps in the development of writing is not known. Their names, like those of the inventors of the wheel, are lost forever in the dimness of the past.

How Early Humans Communicated

Long before the earliest writings of the Sumerians and the Egyptians were developed, people communicated with each other by a number of different methods. Early humans could express thoughts and feelings by means of speech or by signs or gestures. They could signal with fire and smoke, drums, or whistles.

Forerunner of Writing: Picture, or Idea, Writing

The need for communicating in a form less limited by time and space led to drawings or markings on objects of any solid material. These messages lasted as long as the materials themselves. Humans had been drawing pictures from earliest times. The prehistoric cave paintings were artistic and realistic representations of the world of primitive humans.

Sources: Britanica Kids.

In primitive times, people expressed themselves through a combination of verbal, non-verbal, and visual communication methods. Early forms of writing emerged using symbols and later evolved into more complex systems like cuneiform. Cave paintings, hand stencils, and other forms of art also served as important means of communication and storytelling.