Wasn't there just an article that demonstrated writing from 7,000 years ago?
My point was that using prejorative language against oral traditions is inappopriate considering the supposed superiority of "literate" cultures is yet to be demonstrated.*
Considering how little regard we have for what was written 5,000 years ago in terms of valuing it for any historical accuracy whatsoever, or how much of that 5,000 year old narrative was available to us just 100-200 years, it is frankly baffling that I have to defend the idea that there might be something to a different form of social memory that manually encoded 10,000 years of history generation by generation.
Is it really such a thought crime as "noble savage"-ism to point out that there is a difference between losing knowledge for thousands of years before then regaining it later (to hold in fairly contemptuous disbelief) and remembering it for the entire timespan?
*EDIT: Perhaps a better way to say this: the ultimate inferiority of oral traditions is complicated by evidence to its contrary. I don't mean to claim that there are no advantages to written traditions, only that assigning zero advantages to oral traditions is not only arrogant, it is contradicted by the evidence available to use.
Understanding of hieroglyphs was lost because Egypt was invaded by Greeks, Romans, and Arabs over the course of a thousand years.
How many Aboriginal tribes were also wiped out (by the British, or by each other) but left no written record to be recovered? Quite a lot, I'm betting.
And yet.. there still remains evidence that Aboriginal oral tradition maintained accurate history for 10,000 years.
Is it really your point that “literate” cultures have a long history of genocide and therefore “oral” traditions are 100% irredeemably inferior?
Why is it so hard for you to admit that there may — possibly —- somehow —- be tradeoffs between the two?
One thing can be better overall than an other thing even as that other thing has unique merits of its own.
I am under the impression that one could not get far as a provable liar in a society rooted oral tradition. Compare and contrast that with the success rate of liars in every field of endeavor today.
Are you claiming that if the Aboriginals had written this down, they'd have forgotten by now?