https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-woman-is-a-ha...
I've also heard similar stories about people working with leather recognizing some set of artifacts as being more useful for work rather than ceremonial.
Here's of video of creating a roman Vestal Virgins hairstyle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA9JYWh1r7U
I bet there are many more similar stories yet to be told.
So then instead of XXXXXXX the researchers record X/\XXV/X. Let's run that through some mystifying statistical software and tell the world about its information content! Or "complexity", which might not be information.
Come to think of it, an example of misunderstood artifacts from this period, the Aurignacian, is the "perforated baton", formerly proposed to be held at meetings for the right to speak, now found out to be a spear shaft straightener.
Things that are straightforward even to us as non-expert megafaunal hunters would probably be completely obvious to actual experts (if it's not wrong), and people usually don't want to record the obvious stuff.
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!
I would observe that calligraphy such as in Islamic art, frequently conveys two messages. One is more abstract such as it's compelling beauty, but it can also be strongly representational. A word about swans in the shape of a Swan.
So I don't see "it's just decoration" as a strong rebuttal. It may be decorative. It can also convey meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing
> Each historical invention of writing emerged from systems of proto-writing that used ideographic and mnemonic symbols but were not capable of fully recording spoken language. True writing, where the content of linguistic utterances can be accurately reconstructed by later readers, is a later development. As proto-writing is not capable of fully reflecting the grammar and lexicon used in languages, it is often only capable of encoding broad or imprecise information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_speech
> vocal languages must have begun diversifying at least 100,000 years ago
And, of course, today we are going backwards to icon proto-writing, with all the same shortcomings.
And, undoubtedly, while doing so, some of them walked into something and got hurt.
Maybe one day we could communicate with monkeys with marbles and crystals and stuff as SIGN language.
Imagine monkey soldiers becoming reality in AI WARS.
Toddlers for example dont tend to have gang wars for territories and certainly couldnt do battle outcome predictions from a glance at a group across thick canopy and the sounds of branches and hollering.
How do you prove something like that with animals that can come up with a strategy, form battle plans, execute them, etc.
Even a 4 year old has less strategic vision than what is required to wage a prolonged war over years.
Please also note you are just a wet blanket and not the wet blanket - that epithet is not normally sought after.
Here's a decent review:https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/steven-mithen/the...
If you haven't seen it, you might enjoy Benn Jordan's video of "saving" a PNG to a bird:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQCP-5g5bo
(Besides the hook-y title, some interesting info on the acoustics of bird songs with some cross-over into tech.)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/there...
If you have to yell in it, though, the other end can hear you 75 feet away just fine without it!
OK, there's this section:
> The Question of Decoration.
> Recent studies have measured the regularity of notches on bones to determine whether they are more or less visually striking as a decoration. Increasing the regularity of distances between notches—up to the differences just about perceivable by humans—is argued to enhance the decorative value. Such technological and experimental analyses are useful to thoroughly understand the production processes behind a given mobile artifact. On the other hand, categories such as “decoration” and “numerical system,” or “decoration” and “writing system” are not mutually exclusive. Rather, sign systems can be used as decoration without losing their information value. This is exemplified in historic times by calligraphy, inscriptions on pottery and temples, tattoos of graphemes on human bodies, and many other artistic expressions. “Information density” in an information-theoretic sense is a fundamental property of a sign sequence, irrespective of whether there is a human present to interpret it—or merely find it aesthetically pleasing.
So what are they saying: yes it looks like decoration, but maybe that's because it's calligraphy, and it's less than completely random. That means it's proto-writing because there's a scientific theory we can use to cloud the question of what it is exactly that we're claiming.
The BBC article on this quotes a researcher saying "The Stone Age sign sequences are an early alternative to writing." Fucking hell, "alternative to writing". We're not going out on a limb and saying its writing, but we want to heavily imply that without risking being wrong.
I would assume that people in the past generally did things because they found it useful, though, and the idea that they were merely idly creating art is a more remarkable claim than that they were doing something primarily utilitarian, at least from their point of view.
To me, all of it seems like tally marks and counting and tally marks are among the earliest forms of writing we have in pretty much every case that I am aware of.
Technology has enabled us to compound advanced intergenerationally but I don't really believe we're actually that special when compared to our forebears...
We'll never know.
When I was young I was fascinated by drawing 5 pointed stars. It meant nothing.
Our intellect evolved for survival, but now it's very much optional - has been for many generations. It and may now even be inversely correlated with having offspring.
I would be unsurprised if we're noticably dumber now than we used to be.
I'm not saying I buy that that's what this was made for or how it was used, but I do reckon you can make a functional 'telephone' of this style with gourds.
I seriously doubt twine would be a good carrier of vibrations over 75 feet. The fibers would dampen it out. Then there's the mass of the gourds, I doubt the faint vibrations left would vibrate them to a point you could hear anything.
I also suspect that the reason nobody tries it is because then the theory that it is a Fred Flintstone telephone falls apart.
I do think it's more likely it was for use as a rope, with gourd weights to ease throwing.
Just like if someone claims they found a way to use water as an automobile fuel. I don't need to prove it doesn't work. They need to prove it does.