Words and Music

Abstract

The desire to create art (and music) seems to be one of the key differences between humans and prior species with smaller brains. The oldest visual art we know of can still be seen on cave walls, and subsequently on clay panels, carved wood, inscribed stones, and at last, ink on papyrus or paper. Early cave art can also be thought of as the earliest records using symbols, words, and (later) representations of verbal language to convey information. The invention of the alphabet was the outstanding breakthrough, and it only occurred once. Numbers are also a category of symbols with a special kind of meaning, namely counting and (eventually, mathematics). Music is another kind of art, but whatever music prehistoric people may have made or heard can never be recovered, except by inference from horns and other musical instruments whose remains can still be found occasionally.