Traditionally history is said to start where we have written records, the time before the being relegated to anthropology and archeology. But they say that the scope of economic history is larger because we have accounting records before we have written records. Before we had any clay tablets telling legends and recording the events of kings, we have the exchange rate between fish and barley, records of indebtedness, estimates for how many customers a shop might get in a day. Writing in the near-east was essentially developed as a more sophisticated accounting tool. So before I even clicked on the link, I was placing all my bets on a shopkeep. However, as a nitpick accounting as an individual profession really didn't develop until the industrial revolution when large corporations requiring high investment costs to leverage economies of scale led to changes in corporations and bankruptcy proceedings, establishing accounting as a specialty and profession in it's own right, rather than a skill that a business person was expected to learn. So Kushim wasn't an accountant, that's a very modern idea of a job. Kushim was a businessman who kept books to keep track of trade.
Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
51–60 of 136 posts
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#52The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record. So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male nam…
The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. Actually, my understanding is that the emerging reality is more interesting. Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co-depended on…
>Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co-depended on higher population densities.
I think that is unlikely, especially if the support of the entire social dynamic changing is the introduction of warlike/raiding and higher population densities.
For example, there are ~5,500 species of mammals, and only 3 species of mammals have female dominated social hierarchies, and the theory on those is evolutionary not social. Therefore, your statement would make humans only the 4th mammal having a female dominated society and the only species to change the power dynamic for social reasons. I can't refute there are and have been matriarchal societies as you mention, but like the mammal population that would be the exception not the rule.
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. Actually, my understanding is that the emerging reality is more interesting. Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co-depended on…
>Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co-depended on higher population densities. I think that is unlikely, especially if the support of the entire social dynamic changing is the introduction of warlike/raiding and higher population densities. For exa…
Non-patriarchal != matriarchal. (I had originally written matriarchal but changed the comment quickly as I realised had conflated multiple possible prior scenarios)
In any event, humans are a known special case for lots of other stuff, as we have advanced cognitive function and predispositions to social reasoning and inter-generational cultural preservation, so to my mind your statistical argument is obtuse at best.
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?
The same reason that doesn't work for (insert language here). Especially considering that there will be wildly varying scripts and styles of writing.
Ok, how about machine vision plus Mechanical Turk or reCAPTCHA, with the human helping with difficult symbols? Apparently we already have a training set of the translated tablets.
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#55Other brief discussions about this topic suggesting other candidates: http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question114584.html http://ask.metafilter.com/103405/Who-was-the-first-person-in... One Metafilter user ("Riemann") makes the interesting point that a huge number of clay tablets that have been excavated remain untranslated, so it's quite possible that new candidates would turn up over time as scholars examine those a…
Seems like you would first want to translate the oldest tablets. One thing I'm not clear about is how these things are dated, Is radiocarbon dating accurate for clay tablets?
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same reason that doesn't work for (insert language here). Especially considering that there will be wildly varying scripts and styles of writing.
Ok, how about machine vision plus Mechanical Turk or reCAPTCHA, with the human helping with difficult symbols? Apparently we already have a training set of the translated tablets.
I read about a group doing this recently actually. The specifically avoided teach people the language so that they could just translate what the saw and not read in context that wasn't there.
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#57Man, those comments are poison. Amazing how many people flooded in to that article just to act righteously offended and signal how virtuous they are.
Yeah, it was disappointing to read the cringe-y kowtowing apology edited onto the end of the article. This stuff is just everywhere nowadays.
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
What evidence is there of matriarchy, and how is that defined? I think you're right that today a popular theory among anthropologists is that agriculture led to many inequalities, but like all things ancient, there just isn't much data for anthropologists to draw conclusions from.
> what evidence Archaeological evidence Evidence from literate civilizations writing about their uncivilized neighbors, which goes back to the earliest known works Evidence from writers encountering such societies up to the modern day, although they're almost extinct outside of the deep Amazon and the like. Logical conclusions - without a food surplus, there is no class system and other results
>Logical conclusions - without a food surplus, there is no class system and other results
That would make humans the only mammal out of ~5,500 species to not have a social hierarchy and those other species didn't develop hierarchies because they had a surplus of food.
Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#59Other brief discussions about this topic suggesting other candidates: http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question114584.html http://ask.metafilter.com/103405/Who-was-the-first-person-in... One Metafilter user ("Riemann") makes the interesting point that a huge number of clay tablets that have been excavated remain untranslated, so it's quite possible that new candidates would turn up over time as scholars examine those a…
Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?
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Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co-depended on higher population densities. I think that is unlikely, especially if the support of the entire social dynamic changing is the introduction of warlike/raiding and higher population densities. For exa…
Non-patriarchal != matriarchal. (I had originally written matriarchal but changed the comment quickly as I realised had conflated multiple possible prior scenarios) In any event, humans are a known special case for lots of other stuff, as we have advanced cognitive function and predispositions to social reasoning and inter-generational cultural preservation, so to my mind your statistical argument is obtuse at best.
>so to my mind your statistical argument is obtuse at best.
Well I included statistics, but as I note gender domination is evolutionary in mammals. Evolutionary arguments != statistical arguments.
>Non-patriarchal != matriarchal
Correct me if I am wrong, because I did interpret non-patriarchal to mean matriarchal, so I am left assuming what you meant by non-patriarchal is no gender domination pre-agriculture, is that right? If not, what does that mean, I tried googling it and I get the wiki article for matriarchy.
If you meant no gender domination, that would make humans the only mammal to evolve to not have a gender dominate hierarchy. Moreover, since other mammals all evolved to have gender dominated hierarchies and since they don't have the fancy cognitive functions we have, wouldn't it be safe to say like all other mammals, we evolved and developed a gender dominate social structure first and then higher brain functions? Moreover, if primates evolved to have gender dominated hierarchies and modern humans have gender dominate hierarchies (even with our superior brains), then why would we not have had a gender dominate hierarchy until the advent of agriculture?