The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest

The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols
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One of the most significant works on our evolutionary ancestry since Richard Leakeyâ€™s paradigm-shattering Origins, The First Signs is the first-ever exploration of the little-known geometric images that accompany most cave art around the worldâ€”the first indications of symbolic meaning, intelligence, and language.

Imagine yourself as a caveman or woman. The place: Europe. The time: 25,000 years ago, the last Ice Age. In reality, you live in an open-air tent or a bone hut. But you also belong to a rich culture that creates art. In and around your cave paintings are handprints and dots, xâ€™s and triangles, parallel lines and spirals. Your people know what they mean. You also use them on tools and jewelry. And then you vanishâ€”and with you, their meanings.

Join renowned archaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger on an Indiana Jones-worthy adventure from the open-air rock art sites of northern Portugal to the dark depths of a remote cave in Spain that can only be reached by sliding face-first through the mud. Von Petzinger looks past the beautiful horses, powerful bison, graceful ibex, and faceless humans in the ancient paintings. Instead, sheâ€™s obsessed with the abstract geometric images that accompany them, the terse symbols that appear more often than any other kinds of figuresâ€”signs that have never really been studied or explained until now.

Part travel journal, part popular science, part personal narrative, von Petzingerâ€™s groundbreaking book starts to crack the code on the first form of graphic communication. Itâ€™s in her blood, as this talented scientistâ€™s grandmother served as a code-breaker at Bletchley. Discernible patterns emerge that point to abstract thought and expression, and for the first time, we can begin to understand the changes that might have been happening inside the minds of our Ice Age ancestorsâ€”offering a glimpse of when they became us.
Country USA
Brand Atria Books
Manufacturer Atria Books
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 9781476785493
ReleaseDate 2016-05-31
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781476785493

Country	USA
Brand	Atria Books
Manufacturer	Atria Books
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	9781476785493
ReleaseDate	2016-05-31
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781476785493

The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols

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