Project Description
2024-2028
Humans store information outside of their minds. This capacity for information encoding is reflected in symbols and written language, and it underlies artificial computing systems. It is a hallmark of human evolution. Traces of this capacity have "fossilized" in the archaeological record reaching back into the Paleolithic of c. 400 000 to 11 000 thousand years ago. The EVINE project (Evolution of Visual INformation Encoding) proposes to digitize large scale samples of paleolithic finds, and to compare their information encoding potential to ancient and modern writing. This enables us to pinpoint the transitions in information encoding from the first signs to the information age.
This project is funded by an ERC Starting Grant (ERC, EVINE, 101117111).
Reel about African signs from Cave Art to Writing
April 2025Reel by Ewa Dutkiewicz about signs from African cave art to modern day writing, related to the exhibition Planet Africa, eine archäologische Zeitreise at the James-Simon-Galerie (06.12.24 - 27.04.25).
Visiting Museums in Vienna and Mistelbach
February 17-27, 2025Ewa Dutkiewicz and Christian Bentz visited the Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut (ÖAI) and the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (NHMW), as well as the Mamuz Museum in Mistelbach for primary data acquisition in the context of SignBase. Many thanks to Marc Händel (ÖAI), Caroline Posch (NHMW), and Barbara Schuller (Mamuz Museum) for hosting us!
