Written language, the hallmark of human civilization, didn’t just suddenly appear one day. Thousands of years before the first fully developed writing systems, our ancestors scrawled geometric signs across the walls of the caves they sheltered in. Paleoanthropologist, rock art researcher and TED Senior Fellow Genevieve von Petzinger has studied and codified these ancient markings in caves across Europe. The uniformity of her findings suggest that graphic communication, and the ability to preserve and transmit messages beyond a single moment in time, may be much older than we think.

Genevieve is a Canadian paleoanthropologist and rock art researcher finishing up her doctorate at the University of Victoria. She studies some of the oldest art in the world — Ice Age cave art created by early humans in Europe between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago. Her specific focus is on the geometric signs found at many of these sites, and she’s interested in how these images can help us to better understand human cognitive evolution as well as track ancient patterns of migration and explore the origins of symbolism and graphic communication. Her research has been featured both nationally and internationally in print, radio and television. In 2013, Genevieve was selected as a TED Senior Fellow.

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