EOTO Project

 

Petroglyphs: One of the Earliest Forms of Communication

When we think about communication technology, most of us probably think about smartphones, social media, television, or the internet. Before researching petroglyphs, I did not really think about communication technology existing thousands of years ago. However, petroglyphs show that humans have always looked for ways to share ideas and leave information behind for others.

Lake Winnemucca petroglyphs

Petroglyphs are images that are carved, chipped, or ground into rock surfaces. They are different from pictographs because pictographs are painted onto rocks instead of being carved into them. People could make petroglyphs by using handheld stone tools to hit, scratch, or grind the surface of a rock (National Park Service, 2024). This may sound simple compared to the technology we have today, but it was an effective way of creating something that could last for thousands of years.

What interested me the most was how old some petroglyphs actually are. Researchers studying petroglyphs at Winnemucca Lake in Nevada found that the carvings could have been created between about 10,500 and 14,800 years ago (Benson et al., 2013). That is crazy to think about because people living thousands of years before smartphones, computers, or even modern writing systems were still finding ways to leave messages and images behind. 

Petroglyphs could also communicate many different ideas. They often include images of people, animals, lines, spirals, and other shapes. Some may have been connected to stories, important events, travel routes, spiritual beliefs, or the natural world. However, we cannot simply look at a symbol today and know exactly what its creator meant. The National Park Service explains that the location of a petroglyph, archaeological evidence, and traditions passed down through generations can all help provide clues about its meaning (National Park Service, 2024).

Murujuga is famed for its petroglyphs

One of the most impressive examples I found is Murujuga in Western Australia. According to the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, the area contains an estimated one to two million rock engravings. The organization states that rock art has recorded people and their changing environment there for more than 50,000 years. These petroglyphs are also still important to Aboriginal people today (Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, n.d.). This helped me realize that petroglyphs are not simply ancient pictures for us to study. They can be part of living cultures and deserve to be protected and respected.

I think petroglyphs can be considered a communication technology because they allowed people to record and share information through images. Obviously, they are completely different from texting or posting on social media. A petroglyph could take a long time to make and could only be viewed by someone who physically traveled to that location. However, it had one major advantage: permanence.

After researching petroglyphs, I realized that our need to communicate really has not changed that much. The tools have changed, but humans still want to tell stories, express ideas, share information, and leave something behind. Thousands of years from now, our social media accounts may be gone, but some of these carvings could still be sitting on the same rocks.

References

Benson, L. V., Hattori, E. M., Southon, J., & Aleck, B. (2013). Dating North America's oldest petroglyphs, Winnemucca Lake subbasin, Nevada. Journal of Archaeological Science, 40(12), 4466–4476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.06.022

Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation. (n.d.). About Murujuga. https://murujuga.org.au/about/about-murujuga/

National Park Service. (2024, June 12). Learn to look at petroglyphs and pictographs. U.S. Department of the Interior. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/learn-look-petroglyphs-pictographs.htm