Although the script tends to make the root-signs more complex and to show them in a multiple form, it does not enable the latter to be dismembered or simplified into their elementary components. The various root-signs in their complete versions (V, M, X…) have come straight down to us from Palaeolithic times.

In this statuette of a female in the form of a bird from Mezin (Ukraine) we can see meanders coupled with zigzags, multiple Vs, Ms and triangles. The pattern of abstract signs that covers it is too complex and closely interlinked to costitute a simple decoration.(Merlini 2002a)

Alexander Marshack (1992) suggests interpreting the signs as a structured system of symbols representing water, sky, time, earth and snakes. He reads abstract figurations of water, the sequence of time (seasons, lunar cycles…) and, at the same time, attributes or aspects of a female divinity or myths linked to her. Rather than a decoration, these stylised signs would indicate therefore a form of proto-script for conveying Paleolithic knowledge on the creation of life and fertility. The Mezin statuette is 17-20,000 years old.

Although the root-signs can be multiplied and made more complex with the addition of simple geometric patterns, they cannot be broken down and simplified to arrive at their elementary constituents.

The root-signs of the script in their complete form date back to the Palaeolithic. For example, a 30,000-year-old plaque was discovered in Malta (in Siberia), which already bears circles, dots and wavy lines. Therefore, the V does not emerge from the development of a single diagonal sign, since it had already been in use, precisely because it was a V, for thousand of years. The V sign derived from the pubic triangle or from the bird silhouette of prehistoric art. Likewise, the M did not come from placing 2 /\ signs side by side, but instead appears as a zigzag line since the early Palaeolithic (Gimbutas, 1991).

Thus writing developed by means of the addition, and not by the subtraction, of graphic markers from the root-signs.