Line markings as systems of notation?*

Kevin SHARPE - Mary LACOMBE

Abstract. Why did pre-Historic peoples mark lines on various surfaces in Europe, Australia, and other places? We propose that some of the markings are systems of notation, in particular mnemonic forms of ritual stories. To discuss this hypothesis, we look at the finger markings in Koonalda Cave, South Australia. We devise a set of propositions susceptible to in situ investigation which elucidate one way the markings might be notational.

Introduction

Upper Palaeolithic and other people around the world marked objects with non-representational lines, sometimes more-or-less parallel and in sets (Bednarik 1986a). These lines include engravings on cave walls, on portable or non-portable rocks, on bones, and finger tracings (or digital flutings) on suitable surfaces – sometimes called meanders (by Alexander Marshack especially) or macaroni.

We wish to approach the purpose and meaning of these line markings, the finger marks in particular, to their makers. The aesthetic or artistic elements may have importance because the markings sometimes seem to relate to holes, cracks, fossilised shells (naturally present in some limestones) and other features on the rock surface, and they sometimes emphasise the sculptural form of the rocks. But they may mean more than this. What further can we say about the intention and purpose of the lines to the markers and their peoples?

Many researchers suggest purposes for the markings, and others catalogue and analyse such claims (for instance, Bahn and Vertut 1988; Bednarik 1986a, 1990, 1994). All schemes have their drawbacks, mostly because their universal explanations mean an overly awkward forcing of all the empirical data into the hypotheses (the ‘overly awkward forcing’ involves, of course, a subjective judgment by the person so commenting). In 1988, Paul Bahn reacts by suggesting that all of us concentrate on data collection and delay the interpreting until the information pool has grown a lot larger (Bahn and Vertut 1988). A more recent paper by Peter Ucko, on the other hand, points out the subjective influences even on data collection (Ucko 1992). Any theories archaeologists entertain about the line markers’ meanings and intentions affect how they collect data and what data they collect. But worse, as we will point out later in this paper, ideal conditions for objective data collection do not always exist. If the philosophy of science has taught us anything in the last four decades, it is that data are laden with theory. We therefore suggest that scholars subscribe to several approaches that interact with each other and with the data of the lines themselves. We want to emphasise the empirical nature of the theories; they must lead to questions researchers can ask of the markings and they must attempt to synthesise the more-or-less objective data already known.

The use of simple signs, pictures, or markings – that linguists describe with such terms as ‘communication inscription’, ‘cueing system’ or ‘notation system’ – originally conveyed information. These marks were made with easily obtainable materials, and the information contained in them was limited to the persons of a particular geographic and cultural region (Goody 1968). The line markings created by pre-Historic people may fit this description.

This working paper describes a plan of attack, possibly only one of many potential schemes, to facilitate constructive approaches to the markings. We introduce a method to carry out research on some of the markings themselves, and we offer the following hypothesis to help understand some of the markings: They are an early notational system, and, as such, are a cultural and stylised form of interpersonal communication. With this understanding we look at line markings and try to find similarities between them and later developments in notation systems. As we do this, we find inconsistencies we cannot explain. On the other hand, we see similarities that we find useful and helpful in opening up the discussion of the meaning and purpose of the marks.

Line markings as story telling

Gestures, inflections, tone, eye contact, head movements, pitch, loudness and body language add a rich meaning to words (Allman 1994). The live voice, insists Ivan Fonagy, lies worlds away from the printed page (Bolinger 1980). Spoken words convey meanings absent in printed words. Wurth supports a writing theory that describes gestures as writing in air, and many written signs as fixed gestures (Vygotsky 1978). Our reliance on a sound-symbol relationship in writing makes it difficult to think of a different type of association. When we look at line markings, therefore, we might consider some other relationship with language than the one we assume for our own.

An experiment by Thorndike asked small children who could not write to remember difficult things (Vygotsky 1978). The children created apparently meaningless and undifferentiated squiggles and lines, but would read them as though they were spelled-out words. The children referred to specific marks and repeatedly indicated, without error, what marks denoted which phrase. The marks became mnemonic or remembering symbols. ‘Writing’ can serve different purposes for those who do not necessarily follow the concepts underlying modern writing.

Humans are oral story tellers who use communication systems to develop, organise, and remember their stories so they can retell them to others. We assume that story telling was an important form of communication for pre-Historic peoples, and we suspect that the first notation systems connected in some way with story telling. Perhaps the story teller used the line markings found in some sites to help tell stories. Perhaps the line markings in caves act as organising or memory devices for their story telling creators, as squiggles and lines do for young children (Bahn 1988). Caves containing marks may have acted as centres where story telling took place, or the location for teaching stories and story telling to younger members of the group. As mnemonic devices, early notation systems possibly helped the communicators and communicatees organise and remember important stories or pieces of information (Coulmas 1989) — as perhaps is true for today’s writing. Time and education equipped these people with the skills to inscribe pieces that relate their story in their absence.

Line markings, internal analysis and systems of notation

We now set out to apply the above train of thought about line markings as mnemonic notation systems. We suggest a series of propositions that break this hypothesis about line markings down into a set of testable consequences. This represents only one possible approach to how to look at line markings as systems of notation, how the line makers communicated with the lines.

Finger markings in Koonalda Cave as systems of notation
We draw chiefly from our experience and knowledge of the finger markings in the Upper Chamber of Koonalda Cave in South Australia, though we have seen such markings in other sites in both Australia and Europe (Bednarik 1986a; Sharpe and Sharpe 1976, 1978; Wright 1971a). Koonalda also contains lines scratched and engraved onto walls, the ceiling and floor boulders, though animals incised some of them. (Charcoal from 8-15 centimetres below the cave floor around the Koonalda finger markings dates to 19 900 ± 2000 years BP (V-92), and from 12-20 centimetres to 21 200 ± 700 years BP (ANU-180) [Gallus 1971].)

We suggest that people may have used the Upper Chamber for ritual purposes and not, for instance, as a night-shelter, or as a place for a pleasant afternoon picnic. Several reasons for this supposition come to mind.

The Upper Chamber takes us nearly an hour to reach from the surface and we use steel ladders, cut paths, lights (the Upper Chamber is pitch black), and other modern paraphernalia; it is a difficult place to climb into and move about in. The line markers would hardly have risked life and limb to reach a surface to doodle on, if they had no other more serious intentions for being there.

Further, the pre-Historic visitors cleared floors in the surface rubble of the Upper Chamber, placing stones neatly around the outside of the floors. This suggests intentioned and serious use of the visits, perhaps of a ritual nature.

At the time of these Koonalda people, Richard Wright suggests, the sea-level was about 90 metres lower than today, exposing a coastal plain lower than the one Koonalda lies in. Instead of Koonalda sitting on the edge of the 20 kilometre-wide coastal belt, it sat 180 kilometres or so beyond it (Wright 1971b). Study of sediments washed into a lower portion of the cave suggest a similar climate and flora 20 000 years ago as today (Frank 1971). We could therefore expect the then plain south of today’s coast to be as arid and inhospitable as today’s plain north of today’s coastal belt. If the Koonalda people 20 000 years ago were anything like the Mirning, who in modern times inhabited the land adjacent to Koonalda, the only part of the region on which they could live was the coastal belt; further inland virtually no one went and it aroused much fear (Wright 1971b). Thus, the nearest habitable land for the Koonalda people possibly lay around 180 kilometres south of the cave. If the above research is correct, the line markers would have travelled a long way over inhospitable land to reach the cave.

Why would they have undertaken this journey?

· The Koonalda people could have frequented the Upper Chamber to mine flint as they did in the Gallus Site section of the cave. If so, the flint probably had a special non-physical worth since the inland scarp that now forms the sea cliffs south of Koonalda — assuming its exposure — contains the same seams.

· Perhaps the people walked to Koonalda to collect water in particularly dry periods. In those circumstances, however, the water in the cave (in another part of the cave than the Upper Chamber) was probably too saline for human consumption.

Purely utilitarian purposes suggested as reasons to visit the Upper Chamber falter under questioning. Palaeolithic people probably journeyed to Koonalda and its Upper Chamber, therefore, on extra-special occasions for extra-ordinary purposes. The visits may have involved activities such as flint mining or water collecting; more importantly, the Koonalda people probably travelled to the cave for their rituals. As part of their rituals they would have told stories and, we suggest, depicted them as the finger markings on the cave’s walls.

Proposition 1. The finger markings in Koonalda Cave are a system of notation, a mnemonic depiction of myth stories.

Repeated stories
Should we expect the Koonalda people to repeat the same set of myths, make the same statements on the walls, and represent the same characters when they told their ritual stories? Yes. They probably used one place for one particular ritual, associating that place and its contents closely with the ritual — this appears so from ethnographic studies of Australian Aborigines (Gould 1969). The Koonalda people probably used the cave for one ritual and came repeatedly to that location to perform it.

Proposition 1 hypothesises that the finger markings are the mnemonic and inscribed form of certain myth stories recounted in the Upper Chamber as part of ritual ceremonies. Since these rituals entail the telling of the same set of myth stories, we suspect that the lines in Koonalda represent that one particular repertoire of myths.

Proposition 2. As an inscribed form of stories associated with a ritual, the finger markings represent the same set of stories, repeated numerous times.

Repeated structures in the markings
The markings may thus exhibit a specific range of repetitions that represent the sameness of the stories told and retold in the ritual continually carried out in the Upper Chamber.

A communication inscription system (a notation system) is not individualistic, but socially conveyable. If a line marker expressed complete individualism, someone else within the same cultural tradition as the marker may not have understood the marker’s meaning; this disqualifies the markings as a notation system. Since we assume the finger markings are such a system, and since they are the inscribed form of the same stories, repetition or consistencies exist somewhere in the finger markings; same story, same depiction of that story.

However, communication systems were usually limited to small geographic areas, and we may find difficulties in comparing markings from different caves. We may be forced to compare markings within only one cave at a time, or caves that are geographically close together.

This consistency is not that the markings are finger lines, as this is part of the medium like all writing in pencil exists as pencil marks. Neither would the repetition appear as visual pictures or geometric designs, as one might automatically expect. Designs and pictures do not seem to exist among the finger markings in Koonalda Cave.

We suggest, rather, that the consistency lies in repetitions in the structure of the finger markings, the way lines relate to each other or the way the line makers created them. The existence of one element of repeated structure, the predominant use of mostly straight and in places mostly unidirectional markings (as opposed to haphazardly arranged), encourages this hypothesis.

Proposition 3. There exist structural consistencies to the finger markings.

Several consistent structures

Each such consistency represents the sameness of a myth story ritually recounted in the Upper Chamber.

We might find several consistent structures between clusters of the markings because they may represent several stories. Within Koonalda Cave, we can compare the finger markings with serpentine-type engravings or with the grid-like structures above the ‘squeeze’ portion of the cave (Maynard and Edwards 1971). These may represent different traditions of line marking. Similarly, the finger markings may represent several cultural traditions of notation systems. If so, then the finger markings may not conform to one set of structural patterns but exhibit several. Further, as millennia went by, the stories recounted in the Upper Chamber and the method of depicting them probably changed. The markings may represent the same, yet developing, myth stories and notation system tradition. Then we would expect to find in Koonalda variations in the structures and a number of different styles of marking, and different sets of structures exhibited within the markings. While this complicates the picture presented in proposition 1, the Koonalda finger markings would still exhibit sets of structural consistencies.

The above propositions state the idea and attempt to support the existence of intentionally repeated structures in the markings. We do not attempt to build from consistent structure to meaning-based intentionality (and thence to a notation system). Animal markings in caves frequently show a functional consistency (Bednarik 1991 describes various types, such as ‘symmetrical sets’ of animal scratchings), but we could not say they were intentional in the sense that humans intend meaning in their notation systems. Our process works the other way around: we build a case for the presence of intentional consistency and then ask where this consistency exists. We suggest it lies in repeated structures.

What if the finger markings show consistencies that do not represent the meaning of the inscriptions? Consistencies could derive from elsewhere than the markings’ meaning; for instance, the markings could move in one direction because of where the line marker had to position him or herself to draw. But, supposedly, we cannot convincingly explain as accidental or functional the structures isolated and associated with the meaning of a notation system. Thus we need to distinguish between these two types of consistencies: those functionally or accidentally based, and those not. We suggest examining consistent structures in situ to see if the situation readily explains them. Those that evade accidental or functional rationales then become candidates for us to consider as products of the markings’ meaning.

Internal analysis
We continue our structural approach: where might we find a homogeneity in the relationships between the lines? We propose a way to look at the markings and their structures that might allow us to see their consistencies in structure. First, we describe a way to analyse the markings.

Marshack, Bednarik and d’Errico have contributed an important technique of analysis to the study of pre-Historic line markings (for instance, Bednarik 1986a, 1986b, 1994; d’Errico 1989, 1992a, 1992b, 1993, 1994, 1995; Marshack 1991), d’Errico and Marshack focusing on engravings on portable artefacts. They suggest a close examination of the line markings themselves, looking at their cross-sections — depth, width and shape — over their length, and of the points at which they commence, meet or overlie. Different cross-sections of engraved lines would imply the use of a different tool, perhaps by different people, and perhaps at different times. An examination of engraved or finger line junctions tells which lines overlie others, and hence the temporal sequence of their compilation. For finger markings, we can also gain an idea of the size of the hand (the distances between the digits) and the direction in which the hand moved over the medium. We may perhaps discern the age and handedness of the line maker (Bednarik 1986a). From techniques such as these, we can recreate the story of the lines’ construction, their structure: the beginning and endings of lines, the order of their creation, and those fashioned with different tools or by different individuals.

This analytic technique, this internal analysis, remains an ideal; in practice it faces problems. Some sets of lines contain none that overlap or meet, and hence this method loses the temporal dimension of their construction. Further, the rock may now have a quite granular surface, which means we can carry out this analysis only to a certain size dimension at which point the rock surface swallows up the lines and renders them indistinguishable from background marks. This especially happens with weathered lines. The rock may also contain surface cracks, sometimes short and of the same dimension as engraved lines. Thus, not always can cross-sections and overlays be ascertained with certainty, involving a degree of subjectivity and error in the structural analysis of the line markings.

A possible additional technique for analysis uses the relative brightness of the glow of adjacent markings under ultra-violet to indicate their relative ages (Marshack 1975, pers. comm.).

Step 1: cluster separation
Finger lines drawn with one sweep of one hand we call a ‘stream.’ Similarly, we call a set of subparallel lines engraved with one tool a stream. We label a group of streams a ‘cluster’ of streams if they exhibit a unity, for instance because they overlay each other. Sometimes we can easily separate out clusters and sometimes we cannot. Sometimes overlaying streams enclose non-overlain ones. The complexity of this separation needs working out, if it can be, on site.

Proposition 4(i). The finger markings can be divided into clusters.

Step 2: cycle separation
In some cases we can break down a cluster of streams into ‘cycles’ of streams, a cycle comprising either the initial laying down of streams which other lines then relate by overlaying them, or a sequence of touching or crossing streams that follow each other temporally as seen from their intersections. One can see the streams in Figure 1 (from Koongine Cave, South Australia; we can similarly examine the Koonalda markings by internal analysis), and, by tracking them through their overlays, the temporal sequence in which the line marker(s) created this cluster.

Figure 1. Finger markings on the ceiling of Koongine Cave, South Australia, drawn to indicate line overlays. (From Bednarik 1986b; used with permission.)

Proposition 4(ii). Each cluster of finger markings discerned in step 1 can be analysed into cycles.

Step 3: cycle comparisons
The next step compares the cycle break downs from step 2 performed on each cluster that step 1 isolates, and looks for similar analyses or sets of similar analyses.

Proposition 4(iii). There are sets of clusters, in each of which the cycle separations (from step 2) are similar.

Under this research program, a set of clusters with a structural similarity that step 3 finds depicts a myth story. Each set of clusters that differ structurally represents a different myth.

If the research program collapses
We presented the following propositions:

Proposition 1. The finger markings in Koonalda Cave are a system of notation, a mnemonic depiction of myth stories.
Proposition 2. As an inscribed form of stories associated with a ritual, the finger markings represent the same set of stories, repeated numerous times.
Proposition 3. There exist structural consistencies to the finger markings.
Proposition 4(i). The finger markings can be divided into clusters (step 1).
Proposition 4(ii). Each cluster of finger markings discerned in step 1 can be analysed into cycles (step 2).
Proposition 4(iii). There are sets of clusters, in each of which the cycle separations (from step 2) are similar.

These propositions become successively more easy to refute the further one descends to 4(iii); that is, number 4(iii) is probably more easy to refute than 4(ii), which in turn is more easy to refute than 4(i), and so on.

Propositions 4(iii)-4(i). However, proposition 4(i), the division of the finger markings into clusters, may offer more difficulty to uphold than the other two. Sometimes clusters may overlie clusters, thus frustrating attempts to isolate a single cluster. Or perhaps lines intentionally relate yet do not cross each other, or a third does not cross or enclose them both, and we thus assign them to different clusters.

Proposition 3. If the structural consistencies sought for in propositions 4(i)-(iii) do not exist, we might locate other ways to find consistencies beyond the cluster-cycle-stream suggestion. However, if we cannot find some other way to demonstrate consistency in the markings, proposition 3 becomes tenuous.

Proposition 2. If we give up hope of finding any non-accidental structural consistency, then we should call into doubt the idea that the markings represent the same stories frequently repeated. If all the cycles in Koonalda Cave — and hundreds, maybe thousands of them exist — differ under an internal analysis, we would dispute the analysis or its underlying hypothesis about the notation system/ritual story nature of the markings. We can imagine circumstances that would leave no structural consistency. If each cluster of streams of lines represents a story different from all the other clusters, we would find no consistency among all the clusters or even several of them. Further, if something calls into doubt the details of the case built for the ritual use of the cave — that the Koonalda people performed a set of rituals there, or that they probably told the same set of stories at one particular ritual — a shadow falls over proposition 2.

Proposition 1. We suggested the line markings are a notation system that acts as a mnemonic for the telling of stories. We supposed, in other words, that the markings communicate in an interpersonally recognisable manner. Suppose the Koonalda people’s culture expected each line marker to add arbitrarily a stream of finger marks to those already there and thus to express his or her place and participation in the ritual tradition. The markings then do not count as a notation system. Thus, while the line markers may have followed cultural norms, we can imagine circumstances in which the markings do not present the stories in a notation system and the remainder of the propositions do not apply.

If the list of propositions holds, this does not prove the notation-system nature of the markings, though it lends support for the idea. It does suggest, if the people communicated in finger lines, how they might have conveyed their meaning.

If, on the other hand, propositions 2 to 4 fail, then the notation-system hypothesis remains as a hypothesis — weaker perhaps, but still entertainable. This happens because the propositions explore one way to approach the marks as a system of notation, if they are that. We might create alternative lists of propositions after the first to help us understand how the Koonalda people communicated with finger lines.

Conclusion

We proposed, speculatively, that some pre-Historic line markings found in European and Australian caves, as well as in other places, are a notation system, or a mnemonic system of communication. To amplify this hypothesis, we proposed an empirical means, based on Marshack, Bednarik and d’Errico’s methods of internal analysis, to help elucidate our theory, and we suggested a series of testable propositions for Koonalda Cave and its finger markings. If they hold up, they suggest that each set of clusters of markings with similar structures depicts a myth story told in the cave.

If held up, they may also help build a case for other sites of line marks. By focusing on Koonalda, we do not mean to suggest that this argument applies to all sites of line markings; separate cases would need constructing for each of them.

Whatever the outcome of this suggested research on line marks, we hope it and other efforts build from the belief that the markers possessed the same inherent capabilities as modern people. We also hope that investigators test their ideas about the markings on the marks themselves (Sharpe, Lacombe and Fawbert 1998).

Prof. KEVIN SHARPE
Dr. MARY LACOMBE
10 Shirelake Close
Oxford OX1 1SN, United Kingdom

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* First published in News 95: International Rock Art Congress – North, East, West, South, 1995 IRAC – 30 August - 6 September 1995 – Proceedings (Pinerolo, Italy: IFRAO – International Federation of Rock Art Federations, 1999), p. 46 and <NEWS 95 - International Rock Art Congress Proceedings_files/sharp.htm>. Revised May 2001.