People living during the Neolithic did not develop writing. Legends, myths and religious tales would have been passed down from generation to generation through story telling, perhaps around the fire in the evening. Story telling was not the only way that cultural information would have been passed on. During the later Neolithic, some communities in Iberia produced a range of objects bearing engraved symbols which are also found on pottery, stone plaques and enigmatic crosier-shaped objects.

These engravings are often made up of geometric motifs such as lines and triangles and there is also a distinctive ‘eye’ motif. It is not possible to understand the meanings behind these engravings, but they would have been ‘readable’ to the people of the time. They could be representing gods or stories; it is also possible that different motifs related to different family groups. Often these engraved plaques are found in tombs, suggesting that they had meaning in the context of funeral rites.

Engraved stone and ceramic plaques, rock engravings and decorated pottery show us that although writing was not used during the Neolithic, patterns and shapes did hold meaning and were used to convey information as a form of symbolic language.