In this interactive half-day workshop taught by the Director of Columbia Oral History, Amy Starecheski, participants will be introduced to oral history as a dynamic tool for engaged, collaborative research.
Oral history—a conversation about the past, happening in the present, and oriented towards the future—is a core part of human life. Oral history can also be a more formalized research practice. In this interactive workshop, participants will be introduced to oral history as a dynamic tool for engaged, collaborative research, in applications from qualitative social sciences to the creation of primary sources for historical archives. Topics will include:
Critical history of oral history as a research practice
Interviewing and listening
Consent, copyright, and legal releases
Tools for audio recording
Project design and planning
This workshop is in-person only and will not be recorded. Capacity is limited. It is free and open to the public, with a number of spots set aside for Columbia affiliates. Registration is required and the deadline to register is January 28, 2026. Participants should plan to attend for the entire training.
Previously, the oldest known human writing was from Mesopotamia, about 3000 years ago! This is pretty rudimentary writing, but we do copy editing, and you’d be surprised at how rudimentary today’s writing is! We post funny AI mistakes periodically! Watch this space for more!
The Adorant figurine from Geißenklösterle Cave, approximately 38,000 years old, consists of a small ivory plate bearing an anthropomorphic figure and multiple sequences of notches and dots. The application of these marks suggests a notational system, most notably in the rows of dots on the back of the plate. Credit: Landesmuseum Württemberg / Hendrik Zwietasch
New evidence published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates humans experimented with symbolic writing as much as 40,000 years ago. If true, the discoveries dramatically recontextualize the history of communication, given the earliest known written languages are Mesopotamian proto-cuneiforms dating back to around 3000 BCE.
“The artifacts date back to tens of thousands of years before the first writing systems, to the time when Homo sapiens left Africa, settled in Europe, and encountered Neanderthal,” explained Ewa Dutkiewicz, a study co-author and archaeologist at Berlin’s Museum of Prehistory and Early History.
Dutkiewicz and colleagues have spent years analyzing 260 relics recovered from Stone Age cave sites in the Swabian Jura, a remote mountain range located in southwestern Germany. These include a small mammoth figurine carved from the extinct animal’s tusk along with the Adorant, a famous ivory carving that appears to depict a human-lion figure with outstretched arms. These and many other similar artifacts also feature frequently repeating sequences of lines, crosses, dots, and notches.
The mammoth figurine from Vogelherd Cave, approximately 40,000 years old, bears multiple sequences of crosses and dots on its surface. Credit: Universität Tübingen / Hildegard Jensen
The team then entered over 3,000 geometric carvings into a Stone Age sign database, and examined them using various computational analysis tools. They didn’t expect to translate any of the messages, but instead used the analysis to compare and contrast their attributes with writing systems that developed later.
“There are plenty of theories, but until now there has been very little empirical work carried out on the basic, measurable characteristics of the signs,” added Christian Bentz, a study co-author from Germany’s Saarland University.
Bentz explained that using methods like quantitative linguistics and statistical modeling allowed them to compare the symbols found on the Paleolithic artifacts to early cuneiform, as well as modern writing formats. With this approach, they could estimate just how much information could be contained within the carved symbols.
“The human ability to encode information in signs and symbols was developed over many thousands of years. Writing is only one specific form in a long series of sign systems,” he said. “We continue to develop new systems for encoding information. Encoding is also the basis of computer systems.”
The results surprised researchers. Although they initially theorized the proto-cuneiform would share more similarities to present-day writing systems, it seems that the Mesopotamian communication method looks more like its Stone Age ancestors. This means that writing may have changed very little for tens of thousands of years. While the exact meanings of Paleolithic Germany’s artifacts remain a mystery, the team is confident it does not represent any spoken language.
“The signs on the archaeological objects are frequently repeated–cross, cross, cross, line, line, line. This type of repetition is not a feature found in spoken language,” said Bentz.
The team can also now begin narrowing the scope of possible interpretations. The discoveries also highlight that in terms of cognitive capabilities, Stone Age humans had already achieved a similar capacity to the present-day descendents.
“There are many sign sequences to be found on artifacts. We’ve only just scratched the surface,” said Dutkiewicz.
Editor’s note: Think he MEANT that to be a pun?
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Position: Library Associate Organization: Forest History Society Location: Durham, NCEmployment: Full-time | 2 to 3-year grant-funded (with possibility of continuation) Position Overview The Forest History Society is seeking a Library Associate to support the Forests of the Last 50 Years Project—an initiative dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing public access to materials documenting the history of forests from […]
Location: Durham, NCEmployment: Full-time | 3-year grant-funded (with possibility of continuation)Organization: Forest History Society Position Overview The Forest History Society is seeking a highly organized and collaborative Oral/Public Historian (OPH) to our new multi-year initiative, Forests of the Last 50 Years. This 3-year initiative includes major efforts to secure oral histories and documents from key […]
Applications will be accepted through 11:59pm EST April 3, 2026. We must receive all letters of recommendation by April 10, 2026. The recipient will be notified by April 17, 2026.
