The pictures we're also drawn to represent objects and no doubt one day somebody placed a leaf from a tree on the ground. This leaf would have made more than one impression. Green Dye would have been first discovered around this time to as leaves stained fingers. As people did this sort of thing leaf stalks and sticks would have been used additional to fingers and hands and of course other body parts. These early observations would have evolved further and would then lead to body painting as the pictures we're found to stick to the skin when the dust of the ground was dampened. Logic tells us this is how tattooos evolved as did cave drawings. Building & Construction also owes it's origins to this early use of dust, leaves, sticks/branches and the drawing of lines.
Cave paintings, like the lines drawn in the dust and sand, would have depicted the things seen around and would have been used as demonstrations and for making plans, most likely for every day life. The early humans would have drawn cave drawings or pictures which are the early cartoons, caricatures and wall murals, as well as the origins of frescos and paintings as an art form to portray quarry for hunting parties and to educate the tribe and younger peoople about the activity of every day business. Drawing lines in the sand or on the ground afforded trackers a plan or map for them to work with. Pictures would have portrayed what they saw around them and the practice of drawing lines on the ground would have provided a form of bonding & understanding to facilitate teamwork. In caves we still see evidence of early wall drawings with the earliest so far found (Written 2011) being some 32,000 years old. Sounds would have accompanied the lines drawn on the ground which is where we see the early developement of the forming of the written word that evetually actually led to the word used in English "Cartoon".
Words owe their origins to pictograms or Hierogglyphs which began as the lines in the sand or the lines drawn on the ground which in turn led to cave paintings. These pictures would have come to represent sounds associated with things in every day life. These pictograms evolved diffrently in several regions. The early Phoenician alphabet was Hieroglyph based and the Greek where the Latin Word "Carton" that led to the French word "Carte" and ultimately to the use of the word "Cartoon" in English evolved from the pictographic Phoenician. The Chinese word Mao (In Chinese a single symbol), the sound of a cat is a fine example of sound, picture and language forming words from picturing sounds or sights, combining to form words and letters.
So the first cartoons came before words (as we know them that we're formed form earlier expressive sounds) and before fire was used by mankind as it would take the use of fire for the evolution of charcoal based drawing, cartoons, illustration and art to start to begin. Charcoal may have first been discovered due to lightning bolts setting fire to trees. Mankind most likely had an element that overcame the fear of fire to some extent or at least allowed curiosity to move towards the use of charcoal, and as it was increasingly used this may have been where mankind first experiences the use of and control of fire prior to the actual making of fire by their own hands. Black and white Cartoons and illustrations still to this day are drawn in charcoal and owe their history to these ancient times.
So words and pictures find their origins closely intertwined as does the history of many things that the human race now just take for granted but that all have histories evolving as different branches of art form. We find pictures portraying words as words can be illustarted in image form and we find pictures being described by words. The written word and the drawing of lines to make pictures have been paired together since their very first instance, both evolving from a line drawn on the ground inspired by impressions. It is fair to say that at times pictures make a person think of words and words make people picture things.
The oldest known cartoons as cave drawings or cave paintings, can be seen in Chauvet Cave in Southern France though even though these cartoon cave drawings are over 32,000 years old it is unlikely they will be the oldest eventually found. This is most likely to be in or in the region of what is modern day Ethiopa or Ancient Axum (or Aksum). Axum the City which is situated in Northern Ethiopa it is said is the settlement of the sons of Ham, the Son of Noah from the story in the Bible. The people of this region are also known as Cushites the children of Cush the eldest son of Ham. Moses wife Zipporah was/is said to be a Cushite Woman. The area around this region where the Hamitic people, as they are known as, are situated include the Ancient Egyptians and most people are aware of the Egyptian Pyramids the wall murals, frescos and pictographic scenes in the Pyramids, as well as the close proximity of Egypt and their Hieroglyphics and Phoenicia with their Heiroglyphic/pictographic langauge that is the origin of Greek, in turn the origin to Latin and all the other European Languages. The eldest known skeletal remains of human beings have been found in this region of the end of the Upper Nile, below (South of) The Sudan in Ethiopia, so I think it is safe to assume that one day this will be the most likely region the oldest cave wall art and the oldest cartoon will one day be found.
To be continued
