Writing
The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age of the late 4th millennium BC. The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400 to 3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of cultural diffusion.
Runic inscriptions
An important Proto-Norse inscription was on one of the Golden horns of Gallehus (early 5th century). A total of 133 known inscriptions on bracteates. There are several legible and partly interpretable inscription that date from the 1st half of the 5th century such as a Silver neck ring found near Aalen with "noru" inscribed in runic alphabets on its inner edge. others discoveries were unearthed around Germany, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Belgium, England and Bosnia.