Friday's Food for Thought: From Cave Drawings and Smoke Signals to Social Networking. We've Come a Long Way, Baby...

Welcome to this Friday’s Food for Thought post. Today's theme is all about the history of communications. Our co-existence with other humans requires communication on some level. From early cave drawings and smoke signals to today’s social networked-world, our tools for communication have evolved, but the end result is the same: good communication skills lead to better relationships and a happier and more productive society.

Cave Drawings

It is believed that cave drawings were the first form of human communications. Dating back 32,000 years ago, the first cave paintings were discovered in Lascaux, France. They hadn't developed the fine art of French winemaking back then, but they did pioneer a form of communications that permeates our society: visual communications.

The Smoke Signal

Speaking of visual communications, the smoke signal is one of the oldest forms of long-distance communications. It originally started in Ancient China, where soldiers stationed along the Great Wall would alert each other of impending enemy attack by signaling from tower to tower. Of course, most of us know about usage by North American Indians.

The History of the Alphabet

For the written language to flourish, we needed an agreed-upon alphabet. So, when was the alphabet first developed? Funny you should ask. Thankfully Wikipedia has the answer: it was first developed in ancient Egypt. By 2700 BC Egyptian writing had a set of hieroglyphs that represented syllables that began with a single consonant of their language. So, it all started with symbols.

Where We Are Today: Social Networking

One would have to live in a cave (like that pun?) to not see how social networking has become the new frontier of human communications. It is ubiquitous and the government has gotten into the game. If only there was a social network for cave dwellers 32,000 years ago. My how things would be different today.

The Kinks: Ape Man

What better way to cap off today's communication history lesson than with a 1970s hit from the Kinks called “Ape Man." Ray Davies’ artistic vision for this song certainly reminds of how, as humans, we are not far from being cave dwellers. Hope you enjoy and happy Friday!