Archeologists say they have discovered some of the world’s oldest known primitive writing, dating back 5,000 years, in eastern China, and some of the markings etched on broken axes resemble modern Chinese characters.
The inscriptions on artifacts found south of Shanghai are about 1,400 years older than the oldest written Chinese language.
Chinese academics are divided over whether the markings are words or something simpler, but they say the finding will shed light on the origins of Chinese language and culture.
The oldest writing in the world is believed to be from Mesopotamia, dating back slightly more than 5,000 years. Chinese characters are believed to have been developed independently.
Inscriptions were found on more than 200 pieces dug out from the Neolithic-era Liangzhu relic site.
The pieces are among thousands of fragments of ceramic, stone, jade, wood, ivory and bone excavated from the site between 2003 and 2006, lead archeologist Xu Xinmin (徐新民) said.
The inscriptions have not been reviewed by experts outside the country, but a group of Chinese academics on archeology and ancient writing met last weekend in Zhejiang Province to discuss the finding.
They agreed that the inscriptions are not enough to indicate a developed writing system, but Xu said they include evidence of words on two broken stone-ax pieces.
One of the pieces has six word-like shapes strung together to resemble a short sentence.
“They are different from the symbols we have seen in the past on artifacts,” Xu said. “The shapes and the fact that they are in a sentence-like pattern indicate they are expressions of some meaning.”
The six characters are arranged in a line, and three of them resemble the modern Chinese character for human beings. Each shape has two to five strokes.
“If five to six of them are strung together like a sentence, they are no longer symbols but words,” said Cao Jinyan (曹錦炎), an academic on ancient writing at Hangzhou-based Zhejiang University. He said the markings should be considered hieroglyphics.
“If you look at the composition, you will see they are more than symbols,” Cao said.
However, archeologist Liu Zhao (劉釗) from Shanghai-based Fudan University said that there was not sufficient material for any conclusion.
“I don’t think they should be considered writing by the strictest definition,” Liu said. “We do not have enough material to pin down the stage of those markings in the history of ancient writings.”
For now, the Chinese academics have agreed to call it primitive writing, a vague term that suggests the Liangzhu markings are somewhere between symbols and words.
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