What did people use instead of quills before they invented quill pens?

A Reed pen is made from a single piece of reed pointed into a square and split at the point. The first to use reed pens were scribes from Ancient Egypt in the 4th century BC for writing on papyrus. They would dip the reed pen into ink, and it would retain some ink in a split at the point. Reed pens are stiffer than quills and quickly lose a sharp point. Because of that, they were replaced with quills but remained popular in some places until Middle Ages.