Whether this is first or not is dubious. Using symbols always had value in an organized society if only to mark ownership. Let us not forget that animals define ownership by urinating on boundaries. Once clay became available, they had a handy media that could be fired for transmission to our age.
A working script becomes a different matter. Initially they were used as memory aids with little attention to language structure as they would be interpreted by skilled speakers.
It is only when it becomes useful for material to be interpreted by strangers that this breaks down. Then sentence forms and grammar need attention and we begin to see increasing complexity. This happened in the Bronze Age and was most likely driven by the expansion of the metal trade into a world wide enterprise. Record keeping, language skills, and cross cultural narration would become common place.
Thus we see the emergence of precursors to the modern alphabet in this trade economy.
This trade economy also communicated with India
'Earliest writing' found
Exclusive by BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
The first known examples of writing may have been unearthed at an archaeological dig in Pakistan
So-called 'plant-like' and 'trident-shaped' markings have been found on fragments of pottery dating back 5500 years.
They were found at a site called Harappa in the region where the great Harappan or
The earliest kno
wn writing was etched onto jars before and after firing. Experts believe they may have indicated the contents of the jar or be signs associated with a deity.
According to Dr Richard Meadow of Harvard University , the director of the Harappa Archaeological Research Project, these primitive inscriptions found on pottery may pre-date all other known writing.
Last year it was suggested that the oldest writing might have come from Egypt
Clay tablets containing primitive words were uncovered in southern Egypt
They were carbon-dated to 3300-3200 BC. This is about the same time, or slightly earlier, to the primitive writing developed by the Sumerians of the Mesopotamian civilisation around 3100 BC.
"It's a big question as to if we can call what we have found true writing," he told BBC News Online, "but we have found symbols that have similarities to what became Indus script.
"One of our research aims is to find more examples of these ancient symbols and follow them as they changed and became a writing system," he added.
One major problem in determining what the symbols mean is that no one understands the Indus language. It was unique and is now dead.
Dr Meadow points out that nothing similar to the 'Rosetta Stone' exists for the Harappan text.
The Rosetta Stone, housed in the British museum since 1802, is a large slab of black basalt uniquely inscribed with the same text in both Egyptian hieroglyphs and Greek.
Its discovery allowed researchers to decipher the ancient Egyptian script for the first time.
The Harappan language died out and did not form the basis of other languages.
"So probably we will never know what the symbols mean," Dr Meadow told BBC News Online from
What historians know of the Harappan civilisation makes them unique. Their society did not like great differences between social classes or the display of wealth by rulers. They did not leave behind large monuments or rich graves.
They appear to be a peaceful people who displayed their art in smaller works of stone.
Their society seems to have petered out. Around 1900 BC Harappa and other urban centres started to decline as people left them to move east to what is now India and the Ganges.
This discovery will add to the debate about the origins of the written word.
It probably suggests that writing developed independently in at least three places - Egypt , Mesopotamia and Harappa between 3500 BC and 3100 BC.
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