But there was probably an advance made which we do not find
recorded, or only equivocally recorded, in the memorials of the
age. Speech was probably the greatest invention of Magdalenian
man. It has been pointed out that the spine in the lower jaw, to
which the tongue-muscle is attached, is so poorly developed in
Palaeolithic man that we may infer from it the absence of
articulate speech. The deduction has been criticised, but a
comparison of the Palaeolithic jaw with that of the ape on one
hand and modern man on the other gives weight to it. Whatever may
have been earlier man's power of expression, the closer social
life of the Magdalenian period would lead to a great development
of it. Some writers go so far as to suggest that certain obscure
marks painted on pebbles or drawn on the cavern-walls by men at
the close of the Palaeolithic Age may represent a beginning of
written language, or numbers, or conventional signs. The
interpretation of these is obscure and doubtful. It is not until
ages afterwards that we find the first clear traces of written
language, and then they take the form of pictographs (like the
Egyptian hieroglyphics or the earliest Chinese characters).
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