We don't know when exactly the advent of the human consciousness came about, suffice to say that we've benefitted immensely from the ability to think abstractly. There is a lot to ascribe our success to, standing upright, opposable thumbs, tools, and probably the most crucial, our ability to communicate.With the ability to communicate not only could we come up with abstract ideas, we could now relate them to others. Oral speech was the first mode of communication, and for it's purpose it worked, but ultimately it was too fleeting to form the basis of knowledge. With the discovery of visual communication, there was now a way to capture the spontaneity of expression for posterity, and related it more or less route every time.
