Ancient Peoples Were Hipsters Too

Researchers have found that ancient peoples often stuck to obsolete ways of keeping records even long after the invention of writing, and not because they were illiterate. Some long-gone administrative officials may have simply liked to keep it "old school."

Very old school. Clay tokens were recently found in what archeologists believe was once an administrative building in the ancient city of Tušhan - the capital of the late Neo-Assyrian Empire.

These tokens, commonly used for record keeping and "I owe you's" in trade were rendered obsolete once "cuneiform" - the earliest form of writing - became widely used among Assyrians. However, the administrative tokens found were dated to the first millenium BC - 2000 years after cuneiform was first seen.

So what was this administration building, likely staffed with literate employees, doing with these tokens?

John MacGinnis from Cambridge's MacDonald Institute for Archaeological Research says you might as well be asking what we are still doing with graphite pencils, or what your "hipster" friend is doing with a record player in the age of computers and mp3 players.

"Complex writing didn't stop the use of the abacus, just as the digital age hasn't wiped out pencils and pens," he said in a statement. "In fact, in a literate society there are multiple channels of recording information that can be complementary to each other. In this case both prehistoric clay tokens and cuneiform writing used together."

According to the researchers, the tokens, despite being a very old technology, may have even still had a place in the record-keeping system, especially when dealing with communities with lesser educations.

"The tokens provided a system of moveable numbers that allowed for stock to be moved and accounts to be modified and updated without committing to writing; a system that doesn't require everyone involved to be literate," MacGinnis added.

With this reasoning, this Assyrian practice does certainly sound a lot more practical than the "hipster" culture of digging up older trends just to stand out. However, archaeology does say that one day these tokens do stop being used, and MacGinnis wants to understand why.

"The inventions of recording systems are milestones in the human journey, and any finds which contribute to the understanding of how they came about makes a basic contribution to mapping the progress of mankind."

You can find out more about the dig through the University of Cambridge.