History of Writing Systems

http://www.ling.rochester.edu/people/cross/writingsystems.pdf
This is an interesting outline of the "Psychology of Language" course of the University of Rochester in 2000. It briefly discusses the History and Development of Writing, listing the first writing systems (sumerian, pro-elamite, proto-indic, chinese, egyptian, cretan). Following this, the outline shows the reasons which are behind the development of the writing systems, classifying them acording to several features. It has some pictures of early symbols and pictograms. It ends talking about the difference between writing and oral communication.