When writing began

While we keep writing to leave traces and comunicate, on Facebook or wherever, researchers find that in Swabia early Homo sapiens had developed at prototype of a system of purposeful signs about 40,000 years ago and that this system resembles the one that had evolved, presumably independently, as a prototype of Sumerian cuneiform [1]. 

However, given the high migratory flexibility of humankind so well described in the fantastic book ’Proto’ by Laura Spinney [2] on the development of the widespread Indo-European languages, there might also have been direct influence between Swabia and Mesopotamia.

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References:
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-artifacts-hint-earliest-protowriting
[2] https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/proto-9781639732586/

See also, in German, a film on the decryption of very old and forgotten languages: «Magische Zeichen. Ungelöste Fälle der Archäologie», ARD Terra X (44′, 2026)