Ancient Markings Found In Eastern China

Markings on a stone slab found at an excavation site in eastern China date back 5,000 years, per archaeologists.  Chinese scholars are deciding on whether the markings are actual writing or simply a precursor to words expressed through symbols.

The potential Chinese writing is 1,400 years older than the oldest Chinese writing that has previously been discovered.  That writing was found on animal bones during the Shang dynasty. 

Xu Xinmin, the lead archaeologist, claims there is evidence of symbols on two separate broken pieces of an axe.  One of the pieces boasts a segments which contains six symbols written in succession that could be interpreted to indicate a simple sentence.

The individual pieces have all been excavated between 2003 and 2006 from the Liangzhu relic site south of Shanghai.  Up to this point, Chinese scholars have decided to simply call the discovery "primitive writing" until experts from outside of the country are able to investigate the markings.



The original article from MSN News.