The two papers are reproduced in Visual Mathematics by kind permission of the editors.
Art is a far too complex cultural phenomenon to have been invented ex-nihilo.
However, no adequate explanation has so far been given regarding the graphic and cognitive skills which preceded prehistoric art, and made its actual emergence possible. This essay proposes that prehistoric art was preceded by a more primitive kind of pictorial literacy, namely footprints literacy. The obvious attribute common to many early prehistoric paintings and footprints is that both represent their subjects by contour and negative. Thus, it is probable that footprints are the proto-symbols from which figurative art evolved. It is striking that the same attributes which appear in footprints literacy and in art, appear much later as basic attributes of modern science, but at a much higher level of sophistication.