Media.
‘Media’ is a word used to describe all forms of communication . The need to communicate is embedded in our human coding, and so it would seem that many different forms of communication were developed quickly.
The oldest known form of communication are cave paintings, (about 32,000 years ago). The very simplistic act of a human marking on a surface, for another human to see. Shortly there after the first form of telecommunication was formed. Telecommunication is communication over a vast distance. Today we associate telecommunication with our iPhones, but in fact the the first communication over a large distance was a smoke signal. 
The first discovered written language was from 10,000 B.C. However, these were not on pieces of paper. Paper was discovered much later.
As human-kind evolved, more methods of transportation were developed. Literally every form of transportation has played a role in human communication. Pony Express? yeah, you’ve heard of it.
Back to paper, roughly in 105 BC the first paper was invented. With the invention of paper, writing became no big thing, and eventually, us humans came up with the printing press.
