As many academic works on the history of puppetry still contain misunderstandings and approximations, this chapter begins with an overview of knowledge on the origins of puppet theatre. It starts with prehistoric times and moves on to ancient history, concluding that the existence of puppet shows (rather than puppet theatre) can only be demonstrated in Greece. There are no archaeological or literary traces of puppet performances for the Roman Empire, only of votive figures and small toys. The roots of European puppet theatre therefore lie in the Middle Ages, when jugglers began performing short chivalric tales and comical plays, as evidenced by iconography and literary sources. The chapter concludes with an overview of the earliest detailed evidence of puppet theatre performances from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, known as ‘motions’, ‘Himmelreich’, or ‘retablos’. It highlights the discovery of the first published puppet drama, a German adaptation of the story of the prophet Jonah printed in 1582.