Communication Type

Since the very beginning of civilization, communication has been an integral part of the growth of any species. Prehistoric men usually used gestures and sounds for communicating. These sounds were usually picked up from nature or other animals. But, humans started civilizing, a need for more elaborate way of communication was felt and newer methods were adopted by these early men. But till today, it is not totally clear that how did people communicate in the past?

Early Paintings, Language and End of Prehistoric Era
Drawings and paintings were the first forms of communication adopted by early men. During the latter part of the Paleolithic age, people started using pictures for depicting stories of hunting and natural processes. Gradually a system was developed containing pictures for the depiction of ideas and common objects. This system is called pictographic writing. These pictures played an important part in religious rites.
Pictographic writing was found wanting when unusual words had to be depicted. This led to each symbol being represented as a sound rather than an idea or object. This paved the way for the development of spoken language. Drumbeats, smoke and fires were used for sending signals to long distances. With the development of writing, messages could be exchanged over distant places and they could be stored for being used later on. With this invention, the prehistoric era came to an end.

Cave Paintings
If you want to know how did people communicate in the past? Visiting the caves of early men would be the place to start. Paintings were made on ceilings and rock walls of these caves by the elders of the group. Pictures were usually made of objects, and wild animals like bison, horses, and deer. Drawings having human depiction are rare with most of them being schematic in nature. Yellow and red ochre, charcoal, manganese oxide and hematite were used for drawing these pictures. It is believed that the shaman (a respected elderly person) used to go into the caves for the purpose of transcribing their visions on cave walls, usually under the influence of some natural hallucination causing substance.

Petroglyphs and Geoglyphs
Images inscribed on rock during the prehistoric era are termed as petroglyphs. They were the most important form of communication before symbol writing began. These images had deep religious and cultural significance. Geoglyphs were drawings made on ground by arranging stones, gravel or stone fragments accordingly. The motivation behind making these drawings was usually religious. Such drawings which have been found across various continents seem to have an amazingly common style. This says that these images often flash into a human brain, thus explaining the similarity in styles.
All the speculation which is made about how did people communicate in the past? This can never be substantiated enough because not much material evidence is available for proving these beliefs. The human civilization has traveled a long distance from transmitting signals through successively lit bonfires to modern methods of communication. But, as far as the area of communication is concerned, one can never say that the history is complete.