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Because turtle shells as well as bones were used, the oracle bone script is also sometimes called ''shell and bone script''. However, the term ''oracle bone script'' is by far more common and is appropriate for both, as turtle shells are actually a bony material. A very few similar bones have been found dating to the early [[Zhou dynasty|Zhōu dynasty]] period, but most are not inscribed. Bones and shells used in pyromancy have also been found dating back to the Neolithic, but most are not inscribed, and the symbols on those that are not widely recognized as writing. Thus, because the majority of oracle bones bearing writing date to the late Shang dynasty, ''oracle bone script'' essentially refers to the late Shang script. More information on this form of divination and the material aspects of the bones and shells themselves is available at the [[oracle bone]]s page.
Despite the archaic and relatively pictorial appearance of the oracle bone script, it is in fact a mature writing system fully capable of recording language, which clearly implies an earlier period of development. Unfortunately there are virtually no materials providing evidence from such a formative period. From their presumed origins as pictographs and signs, by the mid to late Shang, the graphs had already evolved into a variety of mostly non-pictographic functions, including all the [[Chinese character classification|major types of Chinese characters]] now in use. Phonetic loan graphs, semantic-phonetic compounds (形聲字 xíngshēngzì), and associative compounds (會意字 huìyìzì) were already common. Compared to graphs on bronzes from the middle Shang to early [[Western Zhou]] period, the oracle bone graphs appear simplified, which is thought to be the result of the difficulty of engraving characters on the hard bony materials, compared with the ease of writing them in the wet clay from which the bronzes were cast. We also know that the Shang people wrote on bamboo (or wooden) codices just like those of the late Zhou period, because the graphs for writing brush (聿 yù, precursor to 筆 bǐ, 'writing brush') and bamboo book (冊 cè, a book bound from thin slats, like a Venetian blind turned 90 degrees) are present in the oracle bone writings. Since the ease of writing with a brush is even greater than that of writing with a [[stylus]] in wet clay, it is assumed that the Shang graphs on bamboo were similar to those on bronzes, and also that the majority of writing occurred with a brush on such codices. Additional support for this notion includes the reorientation of some graphs as if to better fit on tall, narrow slats. The more detailed and more pictorial style of the bronze graphs is thus thought to be more representative of Shang writing in general than the oracle bone forms, and it is this style which continued to evolve into the Zhou period, eventually leading to the [[seal script]].
Oracle bone script is not highly regular or standardized; variant forms of graphs abound, and the size and orientation of graphs is also irregular. A graph when inverted horizontally generally refers to the same word, and additional components are sometimes present without changing the meaning. This situation can be seen to continue in the early Zhou script, until the standardization carried out in the [[Qin dynasty|Qín dynasty]] seal script.
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