Proto-writing
The early writing systems of the late 4th millennium BC are not considered a sudden invention. Rather, they were based on ancient traditions of symbol systems that cannot be classified as writing proper, but have many characteristics strikingly reminiscent of writing. These systems may be described as proto-writing. They used ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols to convey information yet were probably devoid of direct linguistic content. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BC, if not earlier (Kamyana Mohyla).
Notably the Vinča signs show an evolution of simple symbols beginning in the 7th millennium, gradually increasing in complexity throughout the 6th millennium and culminating in the Tărtăria tablets of the 5th millennium with their rows of symbols carefully aligned, evoking the impression of a "text". The Dispilio Tablet of the late 6th millennium is similar. The hieroglyphic scripts of the Ancient Near East (Egyptian, Sumerian proto-Cuneiform and Cretan) seamlessly emerge from such symbol systems, so that it is difficult to say at what point precisely writing emerges from proto-writing. Adding to this difficulty is the fact that very little is known about the symbols' meanings.
In 2003, 6th millennium BC radiocarbon dated symbols Jiahu Script carved into tortoise shells were discovered in China. The shells were found buried with human remains in 24 Neolithic graves unearthed at Jiahu, Henan province, northern China. According to some archaeologists, the writing on the shells had similarities to the 2nd millennium BC Oracle bone script.[1] Others,[2] however, have dismissed this claim as insufficiently substantiated, claiming that simple geometric designs such as those found on the Jiahu Shells, cannot be linked to early writing.
The 4th millennium BC Indus script may similarly constitute proto-writing, possibly already influenced by the emergence of writing in Mesopotamia.
The "Slavic runes" mentioned by a few medieval authors may also have been a system of proto-writing. The Quipu of the Incas (sometimes called "talking knots") may have been of a similar nature. A historical example is the system of pictographs invented by Uyaquk before he developed the Yugtun syllabary.
Invention of writing
By definition, history begins with written records; evidence of human culture without writing is the realm of prehistory (see Writing and historicity, below). However, the "origin of writing is no longer a mystery."
The evolution of writing was a process involving economic practice and necessity in the Ancient Near East. Archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat determined the link between previously uncategorized clay "tokens" and the first known writing, proto-cuneiform.[3][4] The clay tokens were used to represent commodities, and perhaps even units of time spent in labor, and their number and type became more complex as civilization advanced. A degree of complexity was reached when over a hundred different kinds of tokens had to be accounted for, and tokens were wrapped and fired in clay, with markings to indicate the kind of tokens inside. These markings soon replaced the tokens themselves, and the clay envelopes were demonstrably the prototype for clay writing tablets.
The original Mesopotamian writing system (ca. 3500 BC) derives from this method of keeping accounts, and by the end of the 4th millennium BC,had evolved into using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay ("cuneiform" writing). Thus the invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the last half of the 4th millennium BC in Sumer.
The earliest forms of writing were logographic in nature, based on pictographic and ideographic elements. However, by the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, the Sumerians had developed a syllabic adjunct to their script, reflecting the phonology and syntax of the spoken Sumerian language. This logo-syllabic script was soon adopted by Akkadian and Eblaite speakers for their own languages, and later by Hittite and Ugaritic speakers.
While it is possible that Egyptian writing is an example of trans-cultural diffusion from their trading partners in Mesopotamia, the Egyptians did not borrow Mesopotamian written symbols. Instead, they used their own artistic iconography. Archaic Egyptian hieroglyphs are attested in the 3100-BC Narmer Palette, and more widespread literacy appears by the mid 3rd millennium (the Pyramid Texts). In southern Egypt, Günter Dreyer discovered records of linen and oil deliveries which have been carbon-dated to between 3300 BCE and 3200 BCE, predating the Dynastic Period. This find challenges the prevailing view that the first people to write were the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) sometime before 3000 BCE.
An undeciphered logographic Proto-Elamite script also emerged at this time, and evolved into Linear Elamite by the late 3rd millennium, which in turn was replaced by cuneiform adopted from Akkadian.
The Indus "script" appeared ca. 2600 BC and outlasted the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization around 1700 BC. However, all records are extremely short, and it is not clear that it was a true writing system.
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