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A zigzag engraved on a freshwater mussel shell at Trinil on Java, about half a million years ago, by Homo erectus: the oldest known geometric engraving, made before our own kind existed.
The mechanism
A PATTERN CUT BY ANOTHER KIND OF HUMAN
How it was checked
- EvidenceT6 PHYSICAL / OBSERVATION; Status: ADDED 2026-09-19
- Letter eraTHE DECLARATION AND THE DEEP RECORD the awakening to Babel: dated by ruling and by the record, placed by story where the text gives no date
- SourcesARCHAEOLOGY — Joordens et al., Nature 518:228–231 (2015): shells at Trinil dated 0.43–0.54 million years, one engraved
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