One of the cave man's first inventions was the handy sharpened stone, the all-purpose skinning and killing tool. This later adapted into the first writing instrument, which was used to keep records of hunting trips. Cave men also scratched pictures with the stone tools onto the walls of their caves. Most of the cave drawings represented events that happened in daily life such as hunting victories or planting. Here are a few examples of the types of tools that cave men (and cave women) used.
This is an antler knife and the second picture is how it was
made: 
Over time, record keepers developed symbols from their drawings, which would represent words and sentences. This was easier and faster to draw and it was universally recognized for its meaning. Not long after this records were made portable by the discovery of clay. Merchant's would use clay tokens with pictograph to record quantities of materials traded. These tokens were first used around 8,500 B.C. Somewhere between 1700 and 1500 B.C. the alphabet replaced the pictograph form of writing. The Hebrew alphabet that is used today has been popularly used since around 600 B.C. Around 400 B.C. the Greek developed their alphabet. This was the first known script that was written from left to right. At first all of the writing systems had only uppercase letters. After the writing instruments were refined enough for detailed letters then lowercase was used as well. This was around 600 A.D. Some of the earliest means of writing that we know about that involve pen and paper were found among the Greeks. The Grecian scholar Cadmus is considered to be the one that invented the written letter. The Egyptians were some of the first people to use a form of paper they used papyrus. One of the oldest pieces of writing on papyrus known today is "Prisse Papyrus" by the Egyptians. This dates back to around 2000 B.C. Another form of writing that the Egyptians used was Hieroglyph. Hieroglyphic writing is phonetic which means that symbols stand for certain sounds. Which unlike the English alphabet where some letters have many sounds or can be silent. There are a few examples of Hieroglyph at the bottom of the page. You can also visit where I got the Hieroglyph on the links page. The first widely used writing instrument that was predominant was the quill pen that was introduced around 700 A.D. The quill is a pen that is made from a bird feather. Some of the strongest quills were those that were taken from living birds during the spring. Usually quill pens only lasted about a week before it was necessary to replace them.
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SOUND OR LETTER |
HIEROGLYPH |
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Short A
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Long A
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B
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Soft C
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Hard C
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CH
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D
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Short E
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Long E
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F
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Soft G
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Hard G
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H
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Short I
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Long I
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J
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K
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L
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M
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N
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Short O
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Long O
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OO
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OO
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P
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QU
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R
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Soft S
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Sharp S
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Z-Like S
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SH
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T
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TH
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TH
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Short U
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Long U
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V
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W
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X
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Hard Y
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Vowel Y
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Vowel Y
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Z
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