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).
Talk at Institute for Empirical Language Sciences
June 4 2025Chris Bentz gave a talk about "Evolutionary Semiotics: Visual Signs from Prehistory to Writing" at the Institute for Empirical Language Sciences at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. Thanks to the audience for the interesting discussions and their feedback. Thanks in particular to the director of the Institute Gerd Carling for the invitation.
Visit at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
May 21-27 2025Ewa Dutkiewicz and Christian Bentz visited the Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte Erlangen at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg for digitization of mobile artefacts. Thanks in particular to Thorsten Uthmeier for hosting us!
