Talk:Neolithic Revolution

Please imagine....

That many, many of the sentences in this article are followed by fact tags. EDIT for clarity: I have no doubts on the facts you've laid out -- but the conclusions you've drawn from those facts need way more documentation. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:34, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

You are right, of course. The page now is just a very basic outline to fill in. When done, I expect it will be much more elaborate. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 19:19, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Holy fuck guys

Does the increase of number of humans from probably a few hundred thousand to a few hundred million mean nothing? Or the creation of libraries, writing, and other systems of logic? Maybe the beginnings of pluralism, versus the us-vs-them outlook of tribal societies? Maybe the decrease of murder rates from above 10% of all deaths to far, far below it? Tribal society might have been idyllic if you were strong, young, accepting of the group morality and mentality and mentally fit, but if you were anything else or tried to buck the trend, you'd literally be left in the dust, to die.

Can we not paint a Noble savage picture? FuzzyCatPotato™ (talk/stalk) 19:30, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Add that part in then, instead of bitching about it? Good and bad came from the neolithic revolution, just like good and bad came from the other societal revolutions--Miekal 19:39, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a page I started. Of course it's going to be full of doom and gloom. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 04:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

At what point in the Neolithic Revolution period did writing and libraries (and other means of storing complex forms of information - quipu, inscriptions etc) emerge? Or did 'the creation of stored information' mark a change to a new form of society? Anna Livia (talk) 12:02, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Well afterwards. First written language is almost universally considered to be Sumerian, ca. 3000 BC. Agriculture and sedentary cultures had been in the area for more than 5000 years earlier. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 16:03, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Does 'the transition to literacy and other information/message storage' as a dividing line have a name? (Art can be read many ways - but a cuneiform text has a specific meaning.) Anna Livia (talk) 22:11, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

None of which I am aware. Literacy was always an indicator of membership in a ruling class at the beginning, and remained so for centuries in places like China. It slowly and imperfectly percolated into the urban lower orders in classical antiquity following the invention of alphabetic scripts. Those cultures have their own name -- 'classical antiquity' -- and enough else to set them apart that no separate name has ever been attached to the phenomenon to my knowledge other than 'urbanization'. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 22:24, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

There probably was a transition period from 'Look, an inscription' (surprise) to 'look, no inscription (in a context where it is expected)' (surprise) - and many forms of literacy; and 'recognition of symbols' ('XYZ - my mark: I made this/my property'; these squiggles on the coin mean it comes from ABC - those badly done squiggles mean the coin is fake) was probably far more widespread than literacy. (And the first 'I was here' type scrawls were probably created very soon after the concept of writing/mural painting was developed). Anna Livia (talk) 09:58, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

While symbols can be traced back to the paleolithic (if those cave paintings count), and there are some sorts of proto-writing like the Vinca inscriptions that probably do represent primitive 'logos' of a sort, written language does not appear anywhere until the Bronze Age. Again, Sumerian was the first written language, and Egyptian got its start very shortly afterwards. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 13:42, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps when there is a RW article on the Neolithic Bronze Age transition (not my field) the transition from 'images and obvious/agreed symbols' to 'agreed systems of information transfer' (writing or otherwise) could be one 'marker' (even if not universal) described. And 'the concept of literacy (including quipu etc)' will be more widespread than 'actual literacy' - and there will be systems of recording information that do not survive 'because their users belong to the non-elite and non-merchant/administrator classes and the substrates are impermanent rather than stone.' Anna Livia (talk) 14:52, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

'Popular' literacy seems to have taken root in a relatively less sedentary Iron Age culture during the Viking Age; we can tell because runes were made for carving into wood and stone, and ordinary documents including love letters have been found carven into sticks preserved in shipwrecks. Complexity of the script seems to make a big difference; literacy more or less defined an elite class in China despite a lively mercantile economy during some periods. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 16:03, 15 September 2017 (UTC)