Reconsidering ‘Tokens
The Neolithic Origins of Accounting or Multifunctional, Utilitarian Tools
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6043873 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lucy E Bennison-Chapman (0000-0003-1978-942X, Film Independent, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 233-259 |
| Publication date | 2019-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0959774318000513 |
| OpenAlex | W2904469517 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 71 |
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 Utilizing new and previously unpublished Neolithic data comprising almost individually studied 3000 objects, accompanied by information from 56 further Neolithic sites, this article investigates the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 arenota 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 notcreatedto administer agricultural produce and there is no evidence to suggest that in the Neolithic they formed part of a unified symbolic system
Ancient history · Archaeological record · Archaeology · Biology · Epistemology · Evolutionary biology · Genealogy · Geography · Linguistics · Social complexity · Sociology · Anthropology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · History · Language and cultural evolution · Philosophy · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Ecology
A stamped sealing from Middle Chalcolithic Tel Tsaf
Clay objects as ‘tokens’? Evidence for early counting and administration at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Mesopotamia
Cities and Citadels
Information Revolutions and Information Transitions
Tools of the Trade
Prendre en compte des comptes
Networks of Knowledge, Materials, and Practice in the Neolithic Zagros
Not Just Counters
An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar
The emergence of infrastructure in later prehistory
Keeping count
How Things Shape the Mind
The Agricultural Revolution
Last hunters, first farmers
Last House on the Hill
The Earliest Neolithic of Iran
Of storage and nomads. The sealings from Late Neolithic, Sabi Abyad, Syria
Post-Pleistocene Adaptations
Religion in the Emergence of Civilization
Numerosity Structures the Expression of Quantity in Lexical Numbers and Grammatical Number
Nimrods, piscators, pluckers, and planters
Tell Sabi Abyad
Reassessing the Emergence of Village Life in the Near East
Portable XRF analysis of zoomorphic figurines, “tokens,” and sling bullets from Chogha Gavaneh, Iran
Before Writing. Volume I
Ghwair I
Neolithic Cultures at 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan
Neolithic Cultures at 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan
Figurines and other Clay Objects from Sarab and Çayônû
Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, 1963
Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, 1962
Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, 1965, Fourth Preliminary Report
Excavations at Çatal Hüyük
Tell Kurdu Excavations 2001
On an Operational Device in Mesopotamian Bureaucracy
Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language, Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective
Chemical analyses of sealing clays and the use of administrative artefacts at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad (Syria)
The Birth of a Concept and the Origins of the Neolithic
Geometric objects from LPPNB Es-Sifiya, Wadi Mujib, Jordan
The Glyptic of the Middle-Late Halaf Period at Domuztepe, Turkey (ca 5755-5450 BC)
Beyond Writing
Material Scaffolds in Numbers and Time
The Taï Plaque and Calendrical Notation in the Upper Palaeolithic
Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa
Zeichenliste der archaischen Texte aus Uruk
The most ancient scripts of Iran
The Envelopes That Bear the First Writing
On the Surface
Not so coarse, nor always plain - the earliest pottery of Syria
An Archaic Recording System in the Uruk-Jemdet Nasr Period
Investigating the Early Pottery Neolithic of Northern Syria
An Image of Complexity
Counter Culture
Tell Sabi Abyad, the Late Neolithic Settlement
Ancestor of the West
The archaic texts from Uruk
Gatherer-hunter to farmer
Early tokens and tablets in Mesopotamia
Memory tools in early Mesopotamia
New light on Neolithic revolution in south-west Asia
Archaeology
Tokenism
The Emergence of Recording
Numerosity, Abstraction, and the Emergence of Symbolic Thinking
Death, fire and abandonment
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,38 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |