ABSTRACT
Centuries before paper was invented, ideas were communicated in various ways other than orally. We know of the paintings on cave walls, and the use of wood, clay, stone, bamboo, wax, silk, palm leaves, and other surfaces. In the West, the immediate predecessors to paper are papyrus and vellum or parchment, the dried skins of animals, which was in use in the West at about the same time as was the earliest papers in the Orient: the second century b.c. But paper has had by far a greater impact on civilization than has any other material ever invented.
