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　　TPO53最早文字的证据

　　Evidence Of The Earliest Writing

　　Although literacy appeared independently in several parts of the

　　prehistoricworld, the earliest evidence of writing is the cuneiform Sumerian

　　script on theclay tablets of ancient Mesopotamia, which, archaeological

　　detective work has revealed, had its origins in the accounting practices of

　　commercial activity.Researchers demonstrated that preliterate people, to keep

　　track of the goods they produced and exchanged, created a system of accounting

　　using claytokens as symbolic representations of their products. Over many

　　thousands of years, the symbols evolved through several stages of abstraction

　　until they became wedge- shaped (cuneiform) signs on clay tablets, recognizable

　　as writing.

　　The original tokens (circa 8500 B.C.E.) were three-dimensional solid

　　shapes—tiny spheres, cones, disks, and cylinders. A debt of six units of grain

　　and eight head of livestock, for example might have been represented by six

　　conical and eight cylindrical tokens. To keep batches of tokens together, an

　　innovation was introduced (circa 3250 B. C. E.) whereby they were sealed inside

　　clay envelopes that could be broken open and counted when it came time for a

　　debt to be repaid. But because the contents of the envelopes could easily be

　　forgotten, two-dimensional representations of the three-dimensional tokens were

　　impressed into the surface of the envelopes before they were sealed. Eventually,

　　having two sets of equivalent symbols—the internal tokens and external

　　markings—came to seem redundant, so the tokens were eliminated (circa 3250-3100

　　B.C.E.), and only solid clay tablets with two-dimensional symbols were retained.

　　Over time, the symbols became more numerous, varied, and abstract and came to

　　represent more than trade commodities, evolving eventually into cuneiform

　　writing.

　　The evolution of the symbolism is reflected in the archaeological record

　　first of all by the increasing complexity of the tokens themselves. The earliest

　　tokens, dating from about 10,000 to 6,000 years ago, were of only the simplest

　　geometric shapes. But about 3500 B.C.E., more complex tokens came into common

　　usage, including many naturalistic forms shaped like miniature tools, furniture,

　　fruit, and humans. The earlier, plain tokens were counters for agricultural

　　products, whereas the complex ones stood for finished products, such as bread,

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