On the origins of sitting

Sitting down. I wonder. Did prehistoric humans sit down? When did "sitting down" become a thing? And by "sitting down", I don't mean sitting cross legged (or in any other position) on the floor, I mean sitting down on a chair. So I guess the question is really to do with the origins of chairs then? When was the first chair devised? But then, no, people could sit down before chairs, on rocks or tree stumps of the appropriate size. So one assumes that sitting down must be an intrinsically human characteristic. Sitting down must first have occurred when the first human sat down, both things (sitting down and being human) being inextricably linked. Some may argue that this isn't necessarily true, and of course they'd be right. But why would humans spend 2, 3, 700, 8000 years not sitting down and then decide to sit? It's not an elegant explanation, that sitting down appeared after human beings. No: sitting down must have originated at the same time human beings did. Which of course leads me to the subject of this blog post: the origins of (not sitting) writing.

I am not going to be as naïve as to suggest that writing has existed as long as human beings have. Even today (though it's becoming more and more rare) one can encounter human groups who have their own language but no writing system. No, writing did not originate at the same time as human beings did. However, I challenge anthropologists to find, amongst these groups of illiterate humans, a group where none of the members, upon being asked to explain how to get to a certain landmark, will crouch to the ground and draw a map on the earth. Philosophers (and linguists, of course) will argue that this is not writing, and they would be (theoretically) correct. Language, especially writing, is made of symbols, figures for which we have chosen either a meaning or a sound arbitrarily. Symbols don't hold a direct relationship with what they represent, they represent what they represent because we (humans) have arbitrarily decided that they should. A map is not composed of symbols, philosophers will argue, a map is composed of signals, it is a direct representation of the world. And for the most part I agree, there is a direct relationship between what is being drawn and what is being represented. However, at one point, this illiterate man who is drawing the map for me looks at me and says to me (of course I speak his language, this whole experience would make absolutely no sense if I didn't): "Here is the big fireplace", drawing a circle with an X inside, "and here, just beyond it is the muddy ford that becomes a river in the wet season", he says, drawing a few lines. These are symbols. They are not signs anymore. We have agreed on what these symbols mean, and no one else, unless we told them the code, would automatically infer what they mean. So is this writing? I don't know. I don't like to say yes, for writing is more complex than that. Writing is being able to explain something as fully with symbols as we would be able to speaking, but then, speaking is already symbolic. Which means that writing is simply a code over a code, a representation of a representation of the world. However, I don't like to say no, for this man and I, having agreed that a circle with a cross means a fire and that a few lines mean a ford, can now use this to communicate when we cannot talk to each other, the whole purpose of writing.

I personally like writing. I do it every day, and if others didn't write I wouldn't be able to read. Yes, to me writing is a great tool. However, when thinking about the origins of writing I need to think of the utility of writing. I believe, though I may of course be wrong, that writing did not first originate to please the sensitive souls who wanted to express their innermost thoughts but not tell everyone around them. No, writing originated, as most human things have, because it was practical. I can see several advantages to writing as opposed to speaking: being able to relay a message without it being corrupted by an intermediary, being able to have a record of an agreement, being able to recall something without spending the time to committing it to memory (although this works both ways, I find that people I know who have difficulty reading and writing have prodigious memories, and I suspect this is due to them using them on occasions when I would just write things down)... I don't see any of these advantages being needed in a small hunter gatherer group. You wouldn't need to relay messages through intermediaries, agreements between members of the group would be so necessary to survival of the group as a whole that they would be generally known and respected, and since small groups would usually remain together, there would be enough time for knowledge to be passed on, more than enough time to help someone commit to memory what they needed to know.

So what is the origin of writing? I see two possibilities: an increase in population and travelling. Probably both. I wouldn't be surprised if (when we are able to time travel, of course) the first records of writing are maps. Instructions for scouts or travelers first appearing when horse riding became more widespread and people started moving in larger radiuses. The other option is that, once groups started becoming bigger, probably after the Neolithic revolution, writing became necessary because agreements weren't kept as readily, since in bigger groups, there is less interdependence for survival, and small untrustworthy acts wouldn't be punished as severely as they might in a small group. In this situation, records would be needed to ensure that deals and agreements and laws were upheld. Then, of course, there is the possibility that both happened at the same time.

I personally find the first option more attractive, it being an active example of communication, arising from a need to help other people, rather than from a need to make sure that people are true to their promises, but I suspect that most linguists and historians will disagree with them.

Now, what really interests me about this whole discussion isn't the appearance of writing. What I really spend hours wondering is when writing started to be more than a tool and started being a reflection of thoughts and a vehicle for stories. Was it someone deciding to collect the oral stories? Someone deciding to record a story-tellers collection because they were leaving soon and there wasn't time to commit the stories to memory? Somehow I don't think so. I like to think that writing a story is different to telling a story. For one thing, when one tells a story, one needs an audience. This makes told stories less personal, less dark than some written ones. Writing is more of a reflective process. It is closer to thinking in that what you write does not have to be released to an audience. Many of us keep notebooks or diaries that no one reads, except (on occasion) ourselves. Writing is a way of recording our thoughts, of recording ourselves. It strikes me every time I read my notebooks, there is more there reflecting how much I have changed than I can remember.