Human writing turns out to be older than we thought, much older

The writing on the cave wall - life - 17 February 2010 - New Scientist

A researcher noticed that cave paintings in France had squiggles painted near them and did a survey of many sites in Europe and found that "more than three-quarters of the symbols were present in the very earliest sites, from over 30,000 years ago." Another researcher found very similar symbols in Australia.

Possibly our ancestors left Africa with a common written language.