Valentine’s Day is once again upon us. In 2006, Keelin McDonell attempted to track down the origin of the holiday’s heart-symbol to explain how it got its familiar shape. Her article is ...

Sweethearts Candy may be gone this Valentine's Day, but that shape – you know the one! – is everywhere. The iconic symbol of love looks nothing like the human organ. Why? Blame Aristotle, or ...

Images of two-lobed hearts are all over everything this month: candy, cards, decorations, etc. But why does the ubiquitous heart symbol not look anything like an actual human heart?

The symbols she found ranged from dots, lines, triangles, squares and zigzags to more complex forms like ladder shapes, hand stencils, something called a tectiform that looks a bit like a post ...

As the study about the symbol engravings notes, the cross-hatches and other geometric shapes seem to indicate "meaning-making" along the lines of prehistoric H. sapiens cave drawings.