Not a lot of B.C. authors are invited to give TED talks. Victoria-based paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger was the only Canadian invited to speak at the 2011 TEDGlobal Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her TED talk, "Why Are These 32 Symbols Found in Ancient Caves All Over Europe?"; had over 1.5 million views by the end of 2015. Her database contains 5,000 examples of symbolic art from 400 sites across Europe that mark the beginnings of symbolic meaning and language. Von Petzinger has now documented her findings about prehistoric European cave art in The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols (Atria Books $36). 9781476785493