Emergence of the First Universal Marks

Julia

Let’s cast our minds way back to the Acheulian period, which, you know, is kind of a mouthful but essentially means we’re talking about these ancient handaxes and tools from roughly 1.7 million years ago—give or take. Anyway, what really fascinates me about this period isn’t just the finished tools themselves, but all the accidental marks that early humans left behind while shaping them. including when using the same tools to make repeated cut-marks in defleshing bone. I mean, these marks—striations, little intersecting lines, just random scratches—at first they must have just seemed like waste, you know, leftovers from flaking or reworking the stone. But here’s the twist: those little accidents turned out to be a pretty big deal.

Julia

Our brains—well, the visual cortex in particular—are just incredibly tuned to certain patterns. Symmetry, clean lines, those Gestalt patterns where you sort of see things pop out that aren’t actually there, grids, repetitions—all that stuff. It’s not like someone taught us to notice these things; we’re hardwired for it. And so, what must have happened is that early humans started noticing that some dents and scratches, probably by pure chance, ended up looking quite satisfying or interesting. Over time, imitation creeps in. Instead of just seeing scratches, people begin to think, “Hang on, that mark is different—maybe I’ll try to make it again.” And what starts as an accident becomes an intentional act.

Julia

Actually, this bit reminds me—when I visited a Paleolithic site in the south of France a few years ago, I remember looking at a bunch of handaxes in the museum. Some had these repeating little notches along the edges, and I found myself doodling those same rhythms while scribbling in my notebook. It’s almost like you’re compelled to repeat what you find visually fascinating, right? I mean, not to stretch the point, but it really hit me just how deep these preferences run, even for someone like me just scribbling without much thought.

Julia

That’s what Hodgson was getting at, really—how these marks went from by-products of toolmaking to something that persisted, something people noticed and copied. And since stone lasts forever—well, almost—that meant someone could see a mark, even generations later, and try to do the same thing. That’s the beginning of information escaping the brain, in a sense. Before writing, before symbols, it was just a scratch, but it meant something—at least visually.

Julia

Now, let’s dig into what happens when these preferences start to become a bit more than, “Oh, that looks nice.” Early hominins—our ancestors, but not quite “artists” in the modern sense—were developing what you might call a proto-aesthetic awareness. So, picture this: you’re making a tool, but you find the symmetry, the balance, or just a repeated notch pattern kinda pleasing. Not just practical—pleasing. That shift is, you know, sneaky but important. It’s the seed of what would eventually become art, or symbolic thinking, or whatever you want to call those deeper layers of mark-making.

Julia

And this is where Derek Hodgson’s idea of neurovisual resonance comes crashing in. The gist is, our brains are biologically tuned to pick out certain patterns. If a mark or a configuration hits the sweet spot in our visual processing, there’s this feedback loop—like, “Ah, that’s good, do it again.” So with every handaxe that gets reworked in a certain way, or every bit of cross-hatching that looks a bit more ordered than the last set, the brain is encouraging imitation. The more satisfying it looks, the more likely it is to be repeated, sort of like how catchy songs just stick in your head—oh wait, that’s auditory not visual, but you get what I mean.

Julia

I do wonder, though, was it always about utility? Or was it partly about beauty? I mean, some of those artifacts—the ones with near-perfect symmetry or those rhythmic little scars—maybe they worked really well as tools, but you can’t help but feel that there was some visual pleasure involved. I know, beauty and utility aren’t always at odds. For example, in some of the prehistoric artifacts displaying patterns, cross-hatching, repeated lines, and rhythmic flake scars seem to show up again and again. So were they just better for gripping, or was there some deeper, maybe even unconscious, drive to create order for its own sake?

Julia

Going back to Hodgson for a moment—he’s adamant that this kind of proto-aesthetic sensitivity isn’t something you layer on top of “practicality,” it’s a built-in part of how our brains work. The appetite for certain configurations is baked into us, long before anyone’s even invented language. The marks that resonated visually were just more likely to survive, be copied, even become the foundation for something as wild as writing or, y’know, modern tech.

Julia

So, this is the really massive leap—moving from all these mysterious marks and motifs on ancient tools… to modern information technology, even artificial intelligence. I know it sounds like a stretch, but let’s walk through it. When those first scratches, those cross-hatchings and repeated marks, started being recognized as more than just accidents, they crossed a threshold. They became the very first external information systems. We’re no longer just holding information in our heads; we’re putting it out there, in stone, for others to see, to remember, to maybe improve upon.

Julia

With every new step—from stylized marks to writing, from writing to digital code—we’re extending memory and reasoning beyond our biological limits. Hodgson’s point is that this was a continuous process: It didn’t just jump from marks on a rock to smartphones and AI overnight. It was countless little scratches and acts of copying, each time feedback from the brain’s preferences nudging things along.

Julia

And I just love this idea—the stone tool as a kind of “mirror” for the mind. Think about it, what was once just an accident—a mark that happened to catch someone’s eye—became the spark for symbolic thinking, for systems that now literally power our world. It kind of flips the whole story of human ingenuity on its head, right? We’re not just clever because we talk or plan, but because we see and replicate what resonates visually. Maybe that’s why some designs are timeless or why some logos just stick with you. Even our most advanced AI rests on this ancient urge to get information out there, to leave a mark.

Julia

So, that’s where I’ll sum up—a journey from stone scratches to sentient algorithms. If this inspires you to explore these insights in depth, why not take a look at Hodgson's 2023 book on the subject entitled, "From Deep Patterns to the Origin of Writing and Information Systems: How Information Escaped from the Brain." As always, thanks for listening.