5 ms·

What are you suggesting? That there are undiscovered caches of writing from ancient hunter-gatherers?

• mmooss 2y ago
  I'm saying the GP's claimed causal relationship between advanced civilization and writing might result from advancement causing more evidence to survive. Certainly there are undiscovered caches, of course. Plenty of people lived in agricultural civilizations that were not the "most highly developed societies". Also, I'm not sure hunter-gatherers couldn't develop writing, though I know theories and could imagine reasons either way. How do you tell your compatriots, coming in the next few weeks, where the good food is?
  • DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
    We have plenty of artifacts and paintings from hunter-gatherers, but no evidence at all of writing. Meanwhile, we have mountains of evidence of writing from the advanced, settled Bronze-Age civilizations. We can't be sure that nobody ever scribbled some symbol down before the invention of agriculture, but we know it can't have been common.
    • mmooss 2y ago
      You are still conflating 'advanced, settled Bronze-Age civilizations' with agriculture. Most agricultural communities were not 'advanced' (almost by definition). > We have plenty of artifacts and paintings from hunter-gatherers Do we? And in the Neolithic or later?
      • DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
        In the global context, they were extremely advanced.