# How did natives survive in ancient times? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 31, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219 "2018-05-31T20:02:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/81 "2018-06-03T16:44:00Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Surviorman is one of the more honest protrayals of living alone in the wilderness. Even Les has a base camp with rescuers fairly close by. He spends a week or more training with local experts, learning the edible plants and hazards. That’s like asking a layperson spent a week talking with a doctor and then expecting them to be proficient in medicine. People who grow up from infancy learning how to live off of the land are going to be much better at it than Les. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/82 "2018-06-03T16:59:56Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > But what about before that? At some point people had to survive on their own. Tribes had to evolve over time. > > It’s like asking which came first, chicken or the egg. > > It’s hard to understand how humans ever came out of the caves and survived for any length of time. It seems like you are operating from several misconceptions. 1. Humans didn’t evolve in caves. Even the “cavemen” who did the paintings like Lascaux didn’t actually live in the caves full time. Humans evolved on the grasslands of Africa and slowly spread from there, adapting to the local environment at each step. 2. Humans evolved as social creatures, like chimpanzees and bonobos. They never had to survive as individuals on their own before they learned to form bands and tribes. 3. Humans didn’t have to learn to survive on the land as adults. As soon as they were born, they started learning how to understand their surroundings, and build the skills and strength that would stave off the kind of exhaustion displayed by the TV host. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/83 "2018-06-03T17:36:55Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > As for the OP, I reckon we’re still basically lanky chimps that do fairly well in the jungle (see Yanomami in S. America & Mbuti in Africa). I think this is probably the only time the Mbuti have ever been held up as an example of “lanky”😃 ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/84 "2018-06-03T18:35:44Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > We don’t know if any ancient culture developed a system of writing. Certainly none has survived, but since the only evidence of ancient humans is found in their tools, cave paintings and the occasional skeletal remains, we are missing far too much information to make fact based conjectures on what their cultures were like. Wouldn’t we expect groups which developed writing to exchange and accumulate cultural innovations/knowledge/technology faster than the others? Wasn’t writing developed on the basis of agricultural IOUs, especially regarding grain stores? The memory skills of non-writing groups lynne mentions might be impressive in the same way that calculating Pi to the 50th decimal and bodybuilding are but they severely lack the quickness, scalability, flexibility and resilience of writing. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/85 "2018-06-03T19:25:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yep. And we don’t even know what the “family unit” was typically found in those groups. Gorillas form harem groups, chimps are promiscuous and bonobos are extremely promiscuous (although a lot of their sexual acts aren’t related to procreation). We often tend to think of nuclear families, but we really don’t know. And people’s ideas of “extended family” change a lot from place to place, among people in developed societies; even between subcultures within what at first sight would be the same culture. It seems to me more likely that the notions of how wide “this is my people” was have been equally wide all throughout humanity’s lifetime than that it was uniform until we started building cities. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/86 "2018-06-03T19:33:40Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Nitpick: I think the word ‘tribe’ is used in this thread where ‘band’ would be the correct term. > > All three words are ambiguous and apply differently in different cultures, but very roughly, a clan might be a plurality of bands connected by close kinship; a tribe a collection of clans connected by more distant kinship. > > (Details can get weird: Members of the Fox Clan of the Chickasaw tribe had a certain affinity with the Fox Clan of the Choctaw tribe.) How is their relationship with the McFox, or with the Azeris? The word clan has been used in or applied to many cultures; your proposal is valid for a specific group of cultures. In the Basque example (Azeri is Basque), “clan” applies to “anybody to whom you know you have a blood relationship” and back when we tracked tribes they were cross-tribe, but our concept of _banda_ is a temporary group which has nothing to do with family. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/87 "2018-06-03T20:27:19Z")
I know native americans tended to live along rivers where their were always fish. Yes you can hunt deer and rabbits but you take even a small village of say 200 people and you will quickly go thru all the wild game in an area. Now some tribes would move to an area and live there until they had consumed all the wild game, cut down all the usable wood, or made the area unlivable with their waste and then they moved on. I know some tribes in the Philippine jungles did this as well as the Australian aborigines. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/88 "2018-06-03T21:32:32Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Wouldn’t we expect groups which developed writing to exchange and accumulate cultural innovations/knowledge/technology faster than the others? Wasn’t writing developed on the basis of agricultural IOUs, especially regarding grain stores? Yes, but the first surviving examples of writing we have were on baked clay tablets stored in a desert area where they could survive for thousands of years. [Knotwork accounting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) isn’t likely to survive very long and wouldn’t be recognizable or understandable to other cultures. There could have been a culture from 90,000 years ago, with little more than stone and wooden tools, that had a complex system of writing and we wouldn’t know it. Hell, the Etruscans were conquered by the Romans and we have no clue how to decipher their writing. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/89 "2018-06-03T22:05:13Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Y > > Hell, the Etruscans were conquered by the Romans and we have no clue how to decipher their writing. We have several clues in fact. But, yes, it still remains mostly undeciphered. Not enough lengthy writings, apparently. > **[Etruscan language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_language)** > > Etruscan (/ɪˈtrʌskən/ ih-TRUSK-ən) was the language of the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria,\[a\] in Etruria Padana\[b\] and Etruria Campana\[c\] in what is now Italy. Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventually completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions that have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek, or Phoenician; and a few dozen purported loanw Th... > **[Etruscan Language](https://www.worldhistory.org/Etruscan_Language/)** > > The language of the Etruscans, like the people themselves, has remained somewhat mysterious and has yet to be fully understood. The alphabet used a western Greek script, but the language has presented... ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/90 "2018-06-04T17:01:37Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Off topic, but that’s not quite true, I don’t believe. > > Obviously, there’s the nutrition aspect. Modern women have more plentiful and well-rounded nutrients all year, so modern babies have an advantage. > > Evolution has also continued to expand the pelvic opening on women through the historic era, to allow for larger heads, so that may also help a modern baby to perform better (on average) than a prehistoric baby. > > And there’s also the bootstrapping issue. > > If you leave a baby in the forest to be raised by wolves and that baby does in fact get raised by wolves, the resulting adult is going to be feral, unable to communicate, and unable even to learn to poo outdoors. > > Humans go through a process of being turned into intellectual giants by comparison to your average mammal through interaction and training by those who came before us. Over the millenia, we’ve discovered more things, better ways of thinking, better ways of teaching, etc. Children are exposed to more and streamlined to be better with every generation. > > A modern adult human is actually smarter than an ancient human, on average, and even ignoring nutrition and such, simply because we live in the modern world with all of its advances and were fortunate enough to be able to soak some of that in. > > I personally suspect that just simple things like teaching children that imaginary friends are _imaginary_ and should be abandoned as soon as possible, or that bullying is bad, etc. are bootstrapping lessons that have rendered our cultures significantly different from ancient humans in ways that we have a hard time imagining. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Unprovable, but unlikely. There are just so many more of us, and with the availability of modern medicine and technology, those of us on the “not so bright side” have a much better chance of survival than they did in the past. But I think you’re misreading what **JC** intended, and that is that native intelligence (no pun in reference to the OP) hasn’t changed in any significant way, on average. Take a baby from 20,000 years ago and plop him or her in our society, and they are unlikely to be noticeably less intelligent than average. > > Now, if we’re talking 200,000 years ago, maybe. There is a significant school of thought that so-called “anatomically modern humans” from before ~ 75,000 years ago were not quite up to snuff with us more recent versions of the species. Leaving aside the question of 75,000 years ago, Jared Diamond has expressed his conviction that _modern_ hunter-gatherers, at least, are smarter than us “civilized” folks for two reasons: 1. Our population density supports epidemic diseases, many of which migrate from herd animals to humans due to animal husbandry. For many, many generations we have been selected principally for disease resistance, whereas hunter-gatherers have been selected for their ability to understand a complex environment using their brains. (That same pressure applies to us but is dwarfed by epidemic disease.) 2. We have television. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/91 "2018-06-04T17:37:29Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Leaving aside the question of 75,000 years ago, Jared Diamond has expressed his conviction that _modern_ hunter-gatherers, at least, are smarter than us “civilized” folks for two reasons: > > 1. Our population density supports epidemic diseases, many of which migrate from herd animals to humans due to animal husbandry. For many, many generations we have been selected principally for disease resistance, whereas hunter-gatherers have been selected for their ability to understand a complex environment using their brains. (That same pressure applies to us but is dwarfed by epidemic disease.) > > 2. We have television. It’s worth noting that Jared Diamond has a VERY poor reputation among professional anthropologists and other scientists. Some critical articles by experts and professionals: “… shallowness of the arguments … drives anthropologists to distraction” > **[The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond – review](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/09/history-society?CMP=twt_gu)** > > Should we look to traditional societies to help us tweak our lives? Wade Davis takes issue with the whole idea “Despite claims that Diamond’s book demonstrates incredible erudition what we see … is a profound lack of thought about what it would mean to study human diversity and how to make sense of cultural phenomenon.” [https://savageminds.org/2013/01/08/how-can-we-explain-human-variation/](https://savageminds.org/2013/01/08/how-can-we-explain-human-variation/) “academic porn” > **[How Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond Distorts History](https://www.livinganthropologically.com/archaeology/guns-germs-and-steel-jared-diamond/)** > > Jared Diamond has done a huge disservice to telling human history, distorting the role of domestication and agriculture in 'Guns, Germs, and Steel.' ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/92 "2018-06-04T18:07:54Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > It’s worth noting that Jared Diamond has a VERY poor reputation among professional anthropologists and other scientists. > > Some critical articles by experts and professionals: > > “… shallowness of the arguments … drives anthropologists to distraction” > [The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond – review | Books | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/09/history-society?CMP=twt_gu) > > “Despite claims that Diamond’s book demonstrates incredible erudition what we see … is a profound lack of thought about what it would mean to study human diversity and how to make sense of cultural phenomenon.” > [How can we explain human variation? | Savage Minds](https://savageminds.org/2013/01/08/how-can-we-explain-human-variation/) > > “academic porn” > [Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond Distorts History](https://www.livinganthropologically.com/archaeology/guns-germs-and-steel-jared-diamond/) Yes, but most of that is jealousy because Diamond had a best selling book and they didnt. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/93 "2018-06-04T18:25:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, but most of that is jealousy because Diamond had a best selling book and they didnt. Crap. That’s a Trump-like argument. ‘They disagree with what I prefer to believe, so I’ll make personal attacks on them.’ Can you back up your assertion with facts? Have you even bothered to read and understand the criticisms? I guess not. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/94 "2018-06-04T18:45:51Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Crap. That’s a Trump-like argument. ‘They disagree with what I prefer to believe, so I’ll make personal attacks on them.’ > > Can you back up your assertion with facts? Have you even bothered to read and understand the criticisms? I guess not. From your last cite:" \*Halfway through teaching Guns Germs and Steel, I blurted out that it was academic porn. The costumes change, the props change, but in the end it’s the same repeated theme. I don’t think I am entirely crazy, even about the porn. After all, Diamond published two books in 1997. One was Guns Germs and Steel; the other was Why Is Sex Fun? It’s as if Diamond was going for a bestseller and put two books in the stores. It seems surprising Guns Germs and Steel became the bestseller, while Why is Sex Fun? barely left the shelves. Who knew? \*" Oh my Diamond can write books on a bunch of subjects and i can’t so let’s make fun of him and call his books porn! At least then my review will be read, even if no one wants my books!!! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: His book, “Fast, Easy, and In Cash: Artisan Hardship and Hope in the Global Economy” is such a dog, that it hasnt even been reviewed once by a reader on Amazon. But it does appear he makes it a required textbook, so at least his students have to buy it. \*Jealousy. \* ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/95 "2018-06-04T19:04:56Z")
Great, now it would be nice if you could address some of the actual criticisms of Diamond’s works, instead of continuing to make irrelevant personal attacks. But perhaps that would require too much reading and thought? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/96 "2018-06-04T19:19:47Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, but most of that is jealousy because Diamond had a best selling book and they didnt. Wade Davis–the reviewer for the guardian–does have a best selling book. The Serpent and the Rainbow was even made into a movie. Also “It’s popular so it must be true” is a crap argument. You get that right? You can address the criticisms if you’d like. Maybe the critics are wrong. Explain why, please. Because right now you seem to be arguing in bad faith. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/97 "2018-06-04T19:23:33Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Great, now it would be nice if you could address some of the actual criticisms of Diamond’s works, instead of continuing to make irrelevant personal attacks. But perhaps that would require too much reading and thought? :dubious: I did, with a quote and everything. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/98 "2018-06-04T19:30:07Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > Wade Davis–the reviewer for the guardian–does have a best selling book. The Serpent and the Rainbow was even made into a movie. > > Also “It’s popular so it must be true” is a crap argument. You get that right? You can address the criticisms if you’d like. Maybe the critics are wrong. Explain why, please. Because right now you seem to be arguing in bad faith. I didnt make that argument. And I was mostly attacking Jason Antrosio for that crappy “porn” comment. Which isnt good criticism or argument. Davis’s critique is reasonable, most that Diamonds book is “pop anthropology” and rather shallow. Sure. But it’s just one book, written for the non-scientific reader, and it succeeded greatly in getting that reader into a interest in anthropology. Diamond is writing for a different audience. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/99 "2018-06-04T22:36:31Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > The idea that hunter-gatherers didn’t have permanent settlements is bunk. I don’t believe that I said otherwise (unless you’re responding to someone else)? I mentioned round huts earlier in the thread. > [@](#): > > The idea that they didn’t have schools is mere speculation and very likely false. I’ve never heard of such a thing among hunter gatherers and Google seems to agree that there was not such a thing (first two relevant results): > **[The Evolutionary Biology of Education: How Our Hunter-Gatherer Educative...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12052-010-0306-1)** > > Education is broadly defined as the set of processes by which each generation of human beings acquires the culture in which they grow up. By this definition, education is part and parcel of our biological makeup. An analysis of education in... > **[Children Educate Themselves III: Wisdom of Hunter-Gatherers](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/200808/children-educate-themselves-iii-wisdom-hunter-gatherers)** > > Our natural ways of learning came about in the context of a hunter-gatherer way of life. How do hunter-gatherer children learn what they need to know to become effective adults? > [@](#): > > And not knowing what their languages even were, it is silly to speculate that they must have only had a single word for the blue-green spectrum, for one example. > > All of that is mere speculation, not known truth. Minus a time machine, I’m pretty sure that all we will ever be able to do is speculate, using the records that have been left for us over the last several millenia and by doing research on the surviving groups of people who have mostly avoided modern influences. While, yes, theoretically our current speculation could be wrong, it is nevertheless the current state of the art understanding to my knowledge and the evidence seems reasonable. I would agree that if we did have a time machine and the ability to learn everything about every language and people throughout the world, that we would likely find just the sort of exceptions that nitpickers would love to bring up. It could well be that there was some tribe of 30 people in Tibet, 20,000 years ago that had 50 words for color because their culture strongly dependended on the identification of varieties of flower. But that wouldn’t change the general course of development that seems to be the case, nor would it change the argument that the Greeks of 200 BC were probably culturally closer to us than to hunter gatherer groups of 20,000 years ago. My argument did not rely solely on color. There were a number of factors that I compared on, and I could have listed still more. And while it may be the case that you could find one prehistoric group that is an exception for each one criteria, it would be farcical to take from that the idea that the Ancient Greeks weren’t ahead of them culturally. > [@](#): > > We don’t know if any ancient culture developed a system of writing. Certainly none has survived, but since the only evidence of ancient humans is found in their tools, cave paintings and the occasional skeletal remains, we are missing far too much information to make fact based conjectures on what their cultures were like. I think it’s fair to say that if there’s one thing we can trust humans to do, given all the knowledge we have from observing them through archaeology, it’s that they will scratch graffiti onto anything they can get their hands on. Using clay for pots, dishes, and other purposes is both a very ancient technology and one which does a really good job of preserving the sorts of things that humans would scratch onto stuff. I’d be willing to accept that maybe some cultures would decide against writing things on pottery, but to suggest that none of them would is pretty unsupportable. If we don’t find evidence of writing before the evidence of writing, but do find loads of pottery shards or any other flat surface that can be scratched with nothing on it but pictures, I think it’s safe to assume that the culture had not developed writing. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219/100 "2018-06-04T23:59:59Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I think it’s fair to say that if there’s one thing we can trust humans to do, given all the knowledge we have from observing them through archaeology, it’s that they will scratch graffiti onto anything they can get their hands on. Using clay for pots, dishes, and other purposes is both a very ancient technology and one which does a really good job of preserving the sorts of things that humans would scratch onto stuff. … I know this was said fairly lightheartedly, so this isn’t a criticism. I would question the idea that markings in archaeological contexts are graffiti. There is stacks of evidence from non-literate cultures around the world that markings, particularly abstract symbols, are mnemonics for pragmatic knowledge (often integrated with spiritual). This is particularly so for decorated ‘non-utilitarian’ objects found in restricted, non-domestic contexts. Contemporary examples include (among many) African lukasa, Australian tjuringa, Ojibwa birchbark scrolls … You can end up in the semantics of ‘what is writing’. Using the definition that writing needs to be able to represent the spoken words, then mnemonic sequences are not true writing. But they are stores of information. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-natives-survive-in-ancient-times/815219.md?page=6)