The First Signs

Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols

By: Genevieve von Petzinger

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

One of the most significant works on our evolutionary ancestry since Richard Leakey's Origins, The First Signs is the first-ever exploration of the geometric images that accompany most cave art around the world—the first indications of symbolic meaning, intelligence, and language.

Imagine yourself as a caveman or cavewoman. The place: Europe. The time: 25,000 years ago, the last Ice Age. In reality you live in an open-air tent or a bone hut. But you also belong to a rich culture that creates art. In and around your cave paintings are handprints and dots, x's and triangles, parallel lines and spirals. Your people know what they mean. You also use them on tools and jewelry. And then you vanish—and with you, their meanings.

Join renowned archaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger on an Indiana Jones-worthy adventure from the open-air rock art sites of Northern Portugal to the dark depths of a remote cave in Spain that can be reached only by sliding face-first through the mud. Von Petzinger looks past the beautiful horses, powerful bison, graceful ibex, and faceless humans in the ancient paintings to the abstract geometric images that accompany them. These terse symbols appear more often than any other kinds of figures—signs that have never really been studied or explained until now.

Part travel journal, part popular science, part personal narrative, von Petzinger's groundbreaking book starts to crack the code on the first form of graphic communication. It's in her blood, as this talented scientist's grandmother served as a code breaker at Bletchley. Discernible patterns emerge that point to abstract thought and expression, and for the first time we can begin to understand the changes that might have been happening inside the minds of our Ice Age ancestors—offering a glimpse of when they became us.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2016 Genevieve von Petzinger (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Wonderful

I have listened to this book four times. It is a subject that has interested me for years, and I have seen some of the caves she discusses. But this book provides context and beauty and science so perfectly I need to return.
Equally exquisite is the narration. The voice is so soothing and she never trips up on anything.

Compelling interpretation. Very open to discussio

This is interesting. I would be satisfied if there was a carry over that tied together the nomad hunter gathers that crossed into North America via the land bridge that connected the continents.
just a thought.

Engaging and accessible

As someone with an amateur interest in Paleolithic anthropology, I found the book to be very accessible and easy to understand. It includes a solid overview of the method and findings as well as providing caveats and being very careful about making any definite or broad conclusions.
The narrative the author created was engaging and very personal and relatable. The narration was also very good.

if you are looking for a indepth hard science paper and thesis, this is not for you. This book distills that information for the broader public and provides context and narrative.

Neat

I found this to be really eye opening and insightful. this was narrated in a wonderful way and it created a positive listening and learning experience for me

Rock art

Great fun! I throughly enjoyed it. The topic is so interesting and informative.
we have been who we are for a very long time.

Well done. Easy read.

This title is perfect for the novice listener with no prior knowledge of the contents. The author does a good job of not leaving you behind. She doesn't take the smallest assumption of the readers potential prior expertise. If this topic interests you and you are new to it, dive in. Although I was hoping to nerd out a bit more, I still really enjoyed the book.

Audible needs an EQ

The “Ess” sound in her voice is so loud. Audible just please make an audio equalizer in this app. So many books need it.

I sow the Ted talk and had to read it.

I sow the Ted talk and had to read it. It was a fantastic read!

A very clear and informative introduction to the study and possible meanings of human ice age visual art

A very up-to-date narrative of one scholar’s journey to find origins, meanings, and connections between hominid (and mostly human) visual art, marks, and possible “signs” on cave walls, rocks, and portable artifacts leading up to the during the last ice age. I’m fairly well-informed about previous research, and this book will not reveal “earth-shattering” new theories or data to anyone who has read a bit about the subject, but the author is the first person to catalog all known “non-representational” marks on European Paleolithic sites, and she gives an excellent and detailed explanation of what relationships can be said to exist between the marks, the people, the sites, and what possible further implications we can draw from looking at the connections. The most notable (and predictable) conclusion is that the prevailing theory of the 20th century, that “rock art” was invented in Europe after the migration out of Africa, is almost certainly false. Additionally, she presents a strong argument that strong social groups and complex communications, including meaningful marks on objects and surfaces, and most likely language, were all part of the daily life of the original groups that left Africa, and that they brought a tradition of intentional mark-making into Europe.

One note (and the reason I removed a star from performance) is that the reader mistakenly stated “16 hundred years” at one time when the correct number was “16 thousand years” which, in a book absolutely packed with numbers and dates, means that some of the spoken numbers cannot be trusted. It is a very minor error, but in a popular scientific book, this could lead to extremely incorrect beliefs on the part of some readers

Fascinating and thought-provoking

While this was an incredibly interesting and entertaining read, the audio quality could have been better. There are a lot of whistling s noises that detracted from the experience, but I’ll still be reading this book again sooner rather than later.