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Reconsidering ‘Tokens’: The Neolithic Origins of Accounting or Multifunctional, Utilitarian Tools?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Lucy E. Bennison-Chapman
Lucy E. Bennison-Chapman*
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Independent scholar Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The origin of record keeping is a key question in the development of social complexity and specialized economies, representing the first step towards the emergence of written communication. Yet the precursors of the world's earliest writing and its initial stages of development remain little understood. Small, geometric clay objects (‘tokens’) appear in the tenth millennium cal. bc, the start of the Neolithic in West Asia, prevailing into the first millennium. It is largely assumed that from their inception clay objects played a crucial role in record keeping, directly evolving into the world's earliest known writing. Utilizing new and previously unpublished Neolithic data comprising almost individually studied 3000 objects, accompanied by information from 56 further Neolithic sites, this article investigates the meaning of Neolithic ‘tokens’. Analysis proves the basis of their predominant interpretation to be incorrect; clay objects appear earlier than previously recognized and are not a necessary component of Neolithic agro-pastoral villages. ‘Tokens’ were multi-functional artefacts; even within a single site clay objects performed multiple roles. Though likely used in simple counting activities, this was not limited to the accounting of agricultural produce. Nor was counting the sole function of clay objects in the Neolithic. Clay objects were not created to administer agricultural produce and there is no evidence to suggest that in the Neolithic they formed part of a unified symbolic system.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , May 2019 , pp. 233 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2018 

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