Writing is a tool to store information outside human brains using marks, signs, and symbols. Full scripts can represent spoken language completely, while partial scripts, such as numbers, can portray information only about a particular topic.
For millions of years, humans stored information only in their brains. In small hunter-gatherer groups, the knowledge of safe camping sites, edible plants, favourable hunting grounds, and tool-making was usually sufficient to survive, and knowing the opinions and relations of other band members helped people get along with the rest. Bearable amount of information in an understandable form to keep in a limited human mind.
Human populations, however, began to increase after the Agricultural Revolution (12,000 YA). Small wandering groups, perhaps the size of several dozen, changed into permanent villages, eventually growing into towns and small cities inhabited by thousands. People began to own more and had to count their wealth for taxes collected to maintain the growing settlements.
Instead of remembering only topographical, botanical, zoological, and social information, people had to start keeping track of numerical data, an odd form of information human brains had not adapted to encounter.
To help with the essential record-keeping, people began to use clay tokens. They were carved into several shapes, representing not only simple cones but also animals, food, and other resources. But, as the wealth accumulated, the number of tokens needed grew too excessive. Therefore, people started to carve marks, symbols, and pictures on stone and clay tablets, and by 3300 BCE, the earliest form of (known) writing had come into being – cuneiform.¹
Within a few hundred years, more and more signs standing for words, ideas, and sounds were added, eventually enabling people not only to count things but to represent spoken language completely in a written form. Kings were able to issue laws, priests to record oracles, citizens to write personal letters, and scribes to record stories that could survive through the ages.
Moreover, larger cities, kingdoms, and empires could emerge as humans had found a way to store, organize, and share an immense amount of information needed to manage growing societies.
¹ The oldest character systems date back over 10,000 years, but we can only guess their meanings. They could probably represent a limited amount of information on a particular topic but not a spoken language completely. The first known writing system was developed by ancient Sumerians in the Near East, about 3300 BCE. Today, we call it cuneiform. Roughly at the same time, Egyptians developed hieroglyphs. Chinese characters emerged around 1200 BCE, and Central Americans invented writing about 1000-500 BCE. The first alphabets, symbols to record speech sounds rather than words, were invented about 1500 BCE by Phoenicians, traders of the ancient Mediterranean. Almost all alphabet systems are derived from Phoenician alphabets.
Bibliography
Vincent, J. 2023. Beyond Measure the Hidden History of Measurement. London, United Kingdom: Faber & Faber. 418 p. ISBN 9780571354221. Pages 30-34.
Harari, Y. N. 2015. Sapiens a Brief History of Humankind. London, United Kingdom: Vintage. 512 p. ISBN 9780099590088. Pages 135-137, 139, 142, 146.
Svärd, S. & Töyräänvuori, J. 2022. Muinaisen Lähi-Idän Imperiumit. Helsinki, Finland: Gaudeamus. 296 p. ISBN 9789523451711. Pages 49-50, 67-69.
Potter, W. 2023. Homo Sapiens the History of Humanity and the Development of Civilization. London, United Kingdom: Arcturus Publishing Limited. 256 p. ISBN 9781788280914. Pages 57, 64-65.
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3100 BCE
The first territorial state
A state is a sovereign and political entity that can enforce laws and use violence within its boundaries. Once permanent settlements began to emerge along riversides, which provided fertile soils for farming, people who were clever or ruthless enough took control of vital resources, accumulated wealth, and became rulers. The first territorial state emerged in Egypt when villages and towns of the vast land were unified under a single ruler known as Narmer.
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5,500 YA
Vehicles on wheels
The first wheels are thought to have been used to make pottery. Around 5,500 years ago, however, someone had an idea to turn wheels 90 degrees and attach them to various types of early carts and wagons, allowing people to move supplies and other loads more efficiently than dragging or pushing them along the ground.