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About 30,000ish years ago, humans were perfecting serious language… [Clocking spinning fast]

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…and around the same time, humans all over the world also started developing much more

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complicated and impressive systems of symbolic art. [Women stood in front of early art]

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What a time to be alive.

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…Well.

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Not really.

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There was a severe lack of pointless Youtube videos. [Cat video playing on a TV]

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Anyway, some scholars think there's a direct link between the two events, and that seems

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pretty valid!

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Which is good, or those guys would be pretty subpar scholars.

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So what do these smarty pantses see as the connection? [Pants with arms and glasses]

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Well, the basic idea is that along with abstract concepts and language systems came the desire [Amish looking man reading a newspaper]

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to make more permanent symbols than sounds. [Modern women reading a newspaper]

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In a lot of cases, this desire came in the form of little carvings of naked women.

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Which we're glad went out of style.

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That'd make reading a book at the airport pretty awkward. [Boy looks uncomfortable]

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But the oldest carved figurine ever found is a tiny sculpture of a woman's body, with [Hand digging up dirt]

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exaggerated features. [A figurine is pulled out of the hole]

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These days, folks call her the Venus of Hohle Fels.

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She was made in Germany around 40,000 years ago. [Man making figurine]

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Scientists have spent a lot of time wondering who made her, why they made her, and if they [Scientist looking through a microscope]

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had ever actually seen a woman before…which….valid.

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See, the carving isn't really lifelike…

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But we’ll cut the artist some slack…

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Ancient Germany didn’t have a lot of art schools…

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The whole struggle for survival probably stood in the way. [Dog jumping up]

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But what if the figurine’s proportions are meant to be distorted?

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What if she’s meant to represent a supernatural figure?

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Maybe some ancient goddess or spirit of fertility, childbirth, or sex? [A goddess comes and takes the artist away]

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Some have also pointed out how the Venus of Hohle Fels is on the bigger side, which is

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a little rude if you ask us, still fat shaming 40,000 years ago...

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But some say that's meant to be a good thing.

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It’s a wish for a time of plenty in an era where most folks were probably hungry and [Man dreaming of food]

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cold.

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Later versions of these Venuses have been found all over Paleolithic Europe, including [Map showing the locations of the sculptures]

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the 25,000 year old Venus of Willendorf.

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Sorry, Venus of Willendorf…we didn’t mean to tell everybody your age.

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Other than women, early humans were mostly interested in depicting animals.

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It makes sense, because what else were they gonna draw? [Man drawing animals]

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Skyscrapers?

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Nope.

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Celebrities?

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Nah.

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Lots of the earliest cave paintings and carvings depicted animals being hunted.

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One popular theory is that the drawings were magic totems, which would bring success to [Man is knocked over by a herd of animals]

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the hunt.

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Others think the drawings were records of actual animals killed… [Man keeping tally of how many animals have been killed]

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…or memories of animals that were migrating or going extinct during periods of climatic

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change...

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Sometimes they even seem to be drawings that smash together traits that humans admired

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to create depictions of mythical creatures. [Man and bison facing off]

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Y'know…like spirits with human bodies and the heads of bison. [Man with a bison head]

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We’re guessing they admired bison heads for those fighting horns and not their chiseled [Man with bison head, headbutting a tree]

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good looks.

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But what do all these drawings and sculptures mean in terms of communication history?

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Well, they mean that humans have been trying to record their ideas and experiences for [Person drawing graffiti on a wall]

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a super long time…

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…they mean that things like religion, reproduction, and remembering the past are pretty fundamental

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to our identities as humans... [Gravestone at the bottom of the ocean]

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…and they mean that we sometimes secretly wish we had the heads of bison… [Woman on a date with the man with a bison head]

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Take that with a grain of salt.

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