2,000-year-old RSVP: A birthday invitation from the Roman frontier that has the earliest known Latin written by a woman   Live Science - February 28, 2025

This wooden tablet is the earliest known example of Latin writing by a woman, Claudia Severa, who invited her good friend Sulpicia Lepidina to her birthday party. The invitation was found at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, where oxygen-free soil helped preserve numerous organic artifacts, including shoes and camping equipment, that normally would have disintegrated over time.

Mysterious Symbols Could Represent The Earliest Writing Ever Found  Live Science - January 12, 2023

Researchers say they have discovered what they call a "proto-writing system" embedded in 20,000-year-old cave paintings, making it the earliest form of some sort of writing we've ever found. Hunters from the Upper Palaeolithic era would have used the symbols daubed on the walls to pass on essential survival information: The researchers suggest they show a record of animal mating seasons, organized by the lunar months. It's a significant finding because it pushes back the earliest form of Homo sapiens writing by around 14,000 years. Although we're not looking at letters and sentences here, these markings do represent "a complete unit of meaning"