麻豆淫院

Universit茅 de Bordeaux-led research reports that spatial statistics can discriminate potential Paleolithic Artificial Memory Systems from butchery and art, aligning prehistoric marked objects with memory devices in Africa and Europe.

Humans are highly symbolic creatures, uniquely combining symbolic reference, complex language, physical representations, active intentional teaching, and large-scale cultural learning.

Artificial Memory Systems (AMS) encompass devices that record, store, transmit, and retrieve coded information beyond the brain, via external representations. AMS can be anything from the notches on a gunslinger's pistol, tracking past success, to the symbols on and data encoded within the Voyager spacecraft's golden record, detailing a snapshot of Earthling knowledge and culture.

Writing systems, recorded music and images stored digitally in computer code represent the most modern form of AMS, utilizing the most complex mix of language and technology ever created, while essentially relying on the simplest binary system of notches and dots to encode.

AMS have been documented among hunter-gatherers, fishers, pastoralists, and horticulturalists, including calendars, message sticks, and tally sticks. As ancient as they are, these systems are recognizable to us as AMS. In searching for still earlier signs of AMS use, less obvious spatial signal analysis is required.

In the study, "Identifying potential palaeolithic artificial memory systems via Spatial statistics: Implications for the origin of quantification," in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, researchers contrasted spatial distributions of markings on candidate AMS with butchery traces, depictional or abstract motifs, and ethnographically recorded AMS to establish criteria for identification and to examine whether spatial structure in these marks relates to early expressions of quantity-based thinking.

Study materials comprised at least 21 archaeological artifacts with around 2,840 markings (range 7鈥�584), dating from approximately 1.7 million to 6,000 years before present (BP). Three bones preserve butchery traces from the Lower, Middle, and Upper Pleistocene. Nine artifacts bear depictional engraved representations. Previously hypothesized AMS include another nine bones dating from 鈮�72鈥�12 ka BP with a total of 534 marks.

Ethnographic items include nine elongated objects on sticks from the 1st to 20th Century CE across North and Central America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australasia, totaling 606 markings with 15鈥�341 marks per artifact.

Documented functions include a North American lunar-cycle calendar, Australian message sticks, medieval English tally sticks for expenditures and taxes, a Tibetan tally stick for wheat and millet deliveries, and Angolan tally sticks for days traveled.

Findings show butchery traces tending toward clustered spatial patterns, depictional or abstract motifs tending toward Complete Spatial Randomness, and potential archaeological AMS tending toward regular spacing.

Orientation patterns diverged accordingly: butchery exhibited oblique angles with higher variance, depictional motifs showed moderate variance, and AMS displayed near-perpendicular orientations with very low variance. Ethnographic AMS co-clustered with Pleistocene candidates, according to a clustering similarity index and an analysis of variance, indicating differences between AMS and both butchery and depiction samples.

Two artifacts, the Solutr茅 and Blanchard ribs, deviated from the regular spacing patterns observed among other AMS candidates. The Blanchard D38.23.1858 rib showed clustered, obliquely oriented marks and may have been repurposed for knapping, which could account for its atypical pattern.

The Solutr茅 rib displayed concentrated engravings in a limited area, differing from the more evenly spaced distributions seen in other examples.

Artifacts from La Marche, Laugerie Basse, and Tossal de la Roca contained both figurative and notational marks. Analysis of these composite examples showed signs of deliberate compartmentalization, where different types of markings were kept separate.

Figurative engravings and notational sets tended to avoid overlapping, and some notational marks appeared to cluster near engraved baselines, suggesting the use of these lines as spatial guides.

The authors conclude that consistent distribution, standardized near-perpendicular orientation, and compartmentalized layouts characterize AMS, and that prehistoric examples share quantifiable properties with ethnographic devices.