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(1992) Language origin, Dordrecht, Springer.
Archaeological data from the ancient Middle East shows a unique, uninterrupted sequence of communication/data storage devices starting ca. 12,000 B.C. This evidence suggests that, in that part of the world, data processing evolved in three main stages, each corresponding to major socioeconomic changes: notched bones (keeping track of lunar notations?) were used by hunting and gathering societies; tokens, recording quantities of goods, followed the domestication of plants and animals; finally, writing coincided with state formation. Each device dealt with data in greater abstraction.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-2039-7_12
Full citation:
Schmandt-Besserat, D. (1992)., The origin of visible language, in J. Wind, B. Chiarelli, B. Bichakjian, A. Nocentini & A. Jonker (eds.), Language origin, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 225-234.
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