ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN ACCOUNTING AND HUMAN COGNITIVE EVOLUTION

Accounting Historians Journal, The, Dec 2004 by Mouck, Tom

The first section below provides a broad overview of human cognitive/cultural evolution, drawing primarily on Donald's [1991] book. The next section provides a brief review of Mesopotamian accounting and the origin of writing. This is followed by a closer look at Donald's scheme of cognitive evolution, which is used to locate precisely the nature of the contribution made by these early accounting systems in terms of new cognitive pathways involving visual/symbolic processing and external memory devices. Finally, the last major section provides a cursory exploration of accounting techniques as devices for cognitive scaffolding and argues that the ancient Mesopotamians were pioneers in such development.

COGNITIVE/CULTURAL EVOLUTION - AN OVERVIEW

Chimpanzees, our closest biological relatives, have demonstrated an ability to integrate patterns of action associated with relationships and events, as evidenced by their manufacture and use of rudimentary tools, and their (limited) forms of social cooperation [Donald, 1991, pp. 155-156]. Their apparent ability to recall situations, events, and action patterns has been characterized as "episodic memory" by Donald, and their "culture", which is based upon episodic memory, is referred to as "episodic culture". But even though they are at the pinnacle of ape cultures and cognitive capabilities, their representational capabilities are limited to episodes or series of episodes involving concrete situations and events. They apparently are not capable of re-presenting situations or of developing shared understandings based on representational knowledge of events, situations and circumstances.

On the evolutionary tree, early hominid species split off from the apes some five or six million years ago, but there is little in the archeological evidence to indicate that the early hominids transcended the episodic-type cognitive capabilities of apes. This is not the case, however, with respect to homo erectus, the hominids that emerged some 1.5 million years ago. Unlike earlier hominids, the archaeological evidence indicates that homo erectus had significantly larger brains, developed very distinctive tools, constructed shelters, used fire, engaged in mass migrations, and used base camps for seasonal hunting activities. These types of activities involve pedagogical practices, social communication and social coordination that are unlikely with episodic cognitive capabilities.

Homo erectus had apparently developed new cognitive capabilities which were intermediate between episodic cognition and the cognitive capabilities associated with language. Contrary to the view that consciousness requires language,2 Donald [1991] theorizes that they had developed the ability to engage in conscious mimetic communication. "Mimetic skill or mimesis rests on the ability to produce conscious, self-initiated, representational acts that are intentional but not linguistic" [Donald, 1991, p. 168]. Whereas apes demonstrate limited forms of selfawareness, the mimetic mind must be able to integrate selfawareness with "voluntary action schémas" and to combine models of the self in action with the contents of episodic memory to produce mimetic re-presentations of recalled events and situations [Donald, 1991, p. 192]. With mimesis individuals could communicate information about feelings, about animals, food sources, dangerous places, etc. They could communicate information about how to hunt, how to maintain a fire, how to build shelter, and how to make tools. And not insignificantly, they could engage in reciprocal game-playing. The significance of mimetic games is the way such games promote ideas about social roles, consequences of social actions, the development of shared attitudes, and social conformity. Mimetic game-playing is also closely related to mimetically based ritual, the outcome of which may be shared understandings of the world and shared understandings about the society itself. In sum, "mimetic culture" was radically more sophisticated and complex than the episodic cultures of apes and early hominids. Contrary to some widely held views of language and human culture,3 mimetic culture was, according to Donald [1991], "the first truly human culture" [p. 193].