It's not hard to see why writing would develop in "complex stratified societies," and why it just wasn't something needed in simpler societies. Compared to oral language, the rudiments that writing systems start with have little to recommend them for use by the culture. They are clumsy and only utilitarian compared to the rich resources of oral language. We might view societies without writing as primitive, but we should also appreciate the accomplishment of transmitting culture and information entirely without writing.Chapter 12: Blueprints and Borrowed Letters
The use of writing originated in SW Asia with Sumerian cuneiform (c. 3000 BC, logograms evolving to phonetic symbols and determinatives etc.), Mesoamerica (c. 600 BC), and probably China (1300 BC). Other cultures adopted writing by blueprint copying or less directly by idea diffusion. Writing systems may incorporate various combinations of logograms (representing words: e.g., much of Chinese, English symbols such as $, %), syllabaries (representing syllables: e.g., Linear B, Japanese kana), and letters contained in alphabets (representing roughly single sounds, though in some cases, a phoneme may be represented by 2 or more letters). Other possible independent sites of writing were Egypt (3000 BC) and Easter Island. Mycenaean Linear B developed 1400 BC from the Linear A syllabary of Minoan Crete. The alphabet arose from Egyptian hieroglyphs for consonant sounds, which Semites c. 1700 initially adapted. The Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet, adding vowel sounds (c. 8C BC). The Etruscans modified the Greek alphabet and later the Romans, leading to the Latin alphabet we now use. The Cherokee Indian Sequoyah developed a writing system for writing Cherokee using 85 symbols, including some from our own alphabet though not according to our usage. Other writing systems include Han'gul of Korea, ogham (Ireland), and the Rongorongo script of Easter Island.
Writing was initially used in complex stratified societies by an elite few (e.g., professional scribes) to maintain palace records and manage bureaucratic accounts (e.g., in Sumeria, records of goods paid in and out), collect taxes, facilitate enslavement (a principal use according to Levi-Strauss), promulgate propaganda and myths, promote religious practice, etc. Writing was not used by hunter-gatherer societies. Some complex food-producing societies never developed writing (e.g., Incas, Tonga, Hawaii, Mississippi Valley Indians, subequatorial and sub-Saharan West Africa--probably because of isolation and failure of idea diffusion).
It's a bit harder to understand how some complex food-producing societies got along without writing, since the first use of it would be as an administrative tool. Diamond cites as reasons isolation, the failure of idea diffusion, and simply the lack of more time. From Diamond's discussion, it seems that long ago, just as now, it wasn't always necessary for a culture to be especially innovative, as long as it was receptive to using innovations from other places. This is where blueprint copying and idea diffusion come in. Today we hear a lot about China relying on the innovations of the West, yet the eagerness of the Chinese to put our inventions to work has propelled them to the no. 2 rank of world economies.
Although writing systems began as the tools of the elite, and literacy remained uncommon for centuries in most cultures that had it, the rise of the modern nation-state was linked to larger proportions of literate citizens. Business ran on writing. Protestantism and democratic movements were also spurs to literacy. Today, high literacy rates correlate with high per capita income or at least high GDP (as in China).
This chapter raises a possible contradiction in Diamond's thesis. All along, he has been saying that cultural factors didn't figure in whether a given group of people adopted food production, animal domestication, and writing. Geography was the sole determinant. But when it comes to less basic, more advanced innovations, he cites a multitude of cultural factors that can make a culture either technologically progressive, or not. I suppose he would say that these cultural traits still do not relate to differences in innate abilities. Even if they don't, could culture, even at its most basic, have been part of the reason for cultures not adopting food production or domesticating animals? Diamond sees the facts as decisive at this level. If the plants and animals weren't available, or they didn't migrate easily from other areas, a given people wouldn't be able to use them. What it might come down to is whether we're looking at areas that originated food production or areas or groups that adopted it. For the originators, Diamond says there was no consciousness of trying to domesticate plants and animals. There was a need to feed growing populations, so whatever presented itself as a better way to do that would be used. For the potential adopters, there could be choice based on whether food production was a more efficient way to provide calories. If it wasn't, why change to it? Diamond cited examples of h-g groups that didn't change to food production after learning that neighboring groups were doing it. So it seems clear that cultures can formulate responses to technology on a more or less conscious level, as opposed to what was happening when the earliest peoples were moving gradually toward farming.Chapter 13: Necessity's Mother
The Phaistos disk (disc) The first printed (stamped, not handwritten) document is the Cretan Minoan Phaistos disk of 1700 BC, but it did not lead to a proliferation of printing apparently because it was ahead of its time, lacked receptive circumstances and supporting technology, etc . Though necessity is sometimes the mother to invention (e.g., cotton gin, nuclear weapons, steam engine), invention often precedes the creation of necessity (e.g., airplane, light bulb) and arises cumulatively from creative geniuses building by trial and error on the discoveries of their capable predecessors.
Early models of inventions often perform poorly and appear unconvincing. The flourishing of inventions requires acceptance within a society, which is influenced by the invention's: (1) economic advantage, (2) social value and prestige, (3) compatibility with vested interests, and (4) ease with which its advantages can be observed. Receptivity to technological innovation varies from society to society and is increased by (1) longer human life expectancy, (2) lack of availability of cheap or slave labor or a high cost of labor, (3) patents or other legal protections, (4) ready availability of technical training, (5) rewards for investment via capitalism, etc., (6) individualism, (7) encouragement of risk-taking, (8) scientific outlook, (9) tolerance of diverse views, (10) religious tolerance and religious encouragement of innovation, (11) ±war, (12) ±strong central government, (13) ±rigorous climate, and (14) ±abundant resources. Receptivity to innovation varies widely on each continent. Most new developments arrive by diffusion, which for places with geographic or ecologic barriers is limited.
Food production and large population and land mass favor more rapid technological development--e.g., in Eurasia. In New Guinea and other areas of the world, conservative (resistant) and more receptive societies lived side by side. The Navajo more than other Indian tribes adapted European use of dyes for weaving and took up ranching. The receptivity to innovation in Islam and China has varied over time. Thus no continent has been unusually innovative or noninnovative over history.
Important inventions such as guns can allow a culture to overrun another. Yet in Japan, the samurai restricted the adoption of guns until Commodore Perry arrived 1853. Other examples of cultures rejecting new innovations include the Tasmanians (fishing), China (ocean going ships), and Polynesians (pottery in some areas).
Technology is autocatalytic, begetting more technology, and the rate of development can accelerate dramatically.
The main factors leading to the difference in technological development between the conquering Europeans and the New World inhabitants were: level of food production, barriers to diffusion, and differences in human population.
