La propuesta de Desarrollo a Escala Humana

Exactly how clay objects might have functioned within the sphere of administration in prehistoric and early historic communities is debated. Yet as demonstrated above, the use of small geometric-shaped clay objects as tools to aid in the accounting of subsistence goods within Neolithic agricultural communities is the most common interpretation of their function, as proposed by archaeologists (mainly as the result of

the dominance of Schmandt-Besserat’s thinking on the topic). A number of examples of

accounting from outside of the Near East are presented below, as a way to challenge the plausibility of the dominant interpretative scenario, and to suggest new ways in which exactly how Neolithic clay objects might have been useful within Neolithic communities. The examples highlight the range of methods by which a set of identical, similar or dissimilar small objects can be used together; in order to perform simple counts, complex mathematics, record numerical information, or to store more intricate information within the realm of accounting and administration.

(i) ANCIENT GREECE-COUNTING

Netz (2002), in his discussion of counting tools in classical Greece, stresses the importance of the evolution and use of numerical skill. Not just within mathematics, but social, political and economic history (Netz 2002: 321). In this context, the ideas posited in this paper are highly relevant to the use of Neolithic clay objects, if they were indeed used as counting tokens, in the Near East. “Counters”, defined as “small tokens”,

were utilised within a clear set of cultural activities: “counter culture” as he defines it (Netz 2002: 324). Netz argues that counter culture acted to increase and spread numeracy across society, a development which in turn, served to drive literacy (Netz 2002: 324). In early Greece, numbers were used to perform calculations, for calculations sake; yet more commonly, they also acted as representations of things, such as in economic exchange (Netz 2002: 325).

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Textual and iconographic evidence makes it clear that in classical Greece, calculations were often made by moving counters on a surface, the abacus (Netz 2002: 325). Unlike

the complex Eastern Abacus, most common today (involving the horizontal movement

of beads suspended on wires or string), ancient Greeks used the simpler Western Abacus. This instrument, consisting of a flat board, onto which lines are marked, creating squares onto which counters of whatever shape or material can be placed (Netz 2002: 326). The squares are labelled with set values, allowing the counters to be

placed as required, or left blank for the user to assign them values on an ad hoc basis

(Netz 2002: 326). Only a handful of such abacus boards have been recovered archaeologically, and intriguingly, no definitive examples of counters have been found; suggesting pebbles or other basic, utilitarian, perhaps multifunctional objects were used as counters (Netz 2002: 326).

Netz suggests the use of counters in Classical Greece were crucial to its numerical

development. Just as today when we see the Hindu-Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3… to 9,

and combinations of) we instantly recognise the symbols on paper as concrete numbers, Netz explains that in ancient Greece, numbers were imagined “as an entity

grasped between the thumb and finger” in the form of a portable object, the “counting

token” (2002: 329). Although Netz does not apply his counter-culture theory to the Neolithic Near East, he does remark on the theory of Schmandt-Besserat, stating that it is probable that the small clay objects often found in the Near East from 8,000 BC may have acted as “counters”, but that it is highly improbable that they all had as shared meaning, across the entire Near East, and from 8,000-3,000 BC (Netz 2002: 344).

Accepting the simple Neolithic “counting token” element of Schmandt-Besserat’s

theory, Nets suggests that the Greek counter-culture was descended from the similar Near Eastern counter-culture; however it might have worked in practice (Netz 2002: 344). Netz’s research opens up interpretations of the functioning of Neolithic clay objects within the accounting sphere in the Near East. Rather than acting as counting aids in one-to-one correspondence, with each object representing a single or larger number of a certain commodity as proposed by Leo Oppenheim (1959) and Lieberman

(1980), Netz’s work demonstrates they had the capacity to have been used in a more

complex way, to perform calculations on an abacus board of some type, simply marked onto the sand or mud floor.

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(ii) DAHOMEY, WEST AFRICA-CENSUS RECORDS

A similarly advanced utilisation of simple, identical small objects is evidence by the ethno-historical evidence from the Kingdom of Dahomey, an extensive and successful state whose history spans 300 years, from AD 1600 until French conquest in AD 1900 (Herskovits 1932). Located in West Africa (covering the modern nations of Ghana,

Togo, Benin and Nigeria), traveller’s accounts of the Dahomean administration system

date from the 17th _{to 19}th _{centuries AD (Herskovits 1932: 252). The Dahomean}

Kingdom was tightly controlled by the king and the state, with an extremely efficient system of governance regulating the payment of taxes, as well as the movement of people, animals and goods from one province to another through the numerous provincial customs houses (Herskovits 1932: 252). Accounts speak of the very simple set of administrative tools which were employed for the purpose of recording births, deaths and population counts, including non-numerical data such as the sex of the large living population, the manner of death, and the individual ages of all citizens under the age of 14 years (Herskovits 1932: 252). Administrators in each province collected census information on a regular basis, bringing their information to the king annually to be was collated in the palace (Herskovits 1932: 358). Simple pebbles, baskets, boxes and bags were used for this purpose.

Each Dahomean province had an administration house containing separate rooms to store information related to births and deaths. Births were recorded yearly via the use of pebbles. Pebbles representing each child were stored in a case according to their age and sex (Herskovits 1932: 252). The case consisted of a large box, subdivided into two rows of smaller boxes; one row for males and another for females. Each column of two boxes (male and female) represented a year, thus at the end of the year, all pebbles in the first column representing new-borns, were moved across one row, into the section representing 1 year olds. The rows continued year by year, up to fourteen years, allowing new births for the following year to be placed into the new-born boxes by sex. After the fourteenth year, the pebbles were transferred into the adult boxes, one for males and another for females. If a person died, a pebble would be removed from the box representing their age and sex at death, and then moved into a separate room recording death, being placed into a box or sack according to their age, sex and manner of death (Herskovits 1932: 258).

In addition to information being transmitted via the location of pebbles, colours and symbols were also used; especially at the end of the year when all boxes of pebbles

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were bought to the capital to be collated in the yearly count (Herskovits 1932: 260-61). Pebbles were transported to the capital’s palace, thus the information related to the location of boxes was lost. Replaced by colours or symbols, pebbles of the deceased were transported in sacks, with black sacks holding the stones of men who had died in battle, red sacks holding deaths from illness and white sacks holding stones representing deceased captives (Herskovits 1932: 260). For the living population, the box compartments holding the stones of adult males had an image of the traditional male trunks sewn onto the side. Adult women were symbolised by beads and the ages of children in years were indicated by the corresponding number of stripes present in the box compartment (Herskovits 1932: 261). The separate counts of each province were placed into large baskets with symbols representing the district (such as a pot for Zumi district; a clay making region) so as to avoid confusion when presenting the data to the king (Herskovits 1932: 255, 55, 60). The evidence from the Kingdom of Dahomey illustrates how simple, identical objects can be used to collect and store large amounts of complex information, numerical and otherwise, in an easily managed system. The system demonstrates that clay objects, as Schmandt-Besserat claims, certainly have the capacity to have symbolised specific numbers, units of numbers, words (i.e. commodities) or both.