ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN ACCOUNTING AND HUMAN COGNITIVE EVOLUTION

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

It is at this level, the transition to literacy, that the ancient accounting techniques of Mesopotamia made their crucial contribution in terms of a 'visuo-symbolic system'. But this contribution needs to be put in historical perspective. The early cave paintings, for instance, were apparently used to 'tell stories' about hunting and fertility; 'stories' that were certainly visual, and in a loose sense probably contained symbolic references. Thus, in Donald's [1991] theory of cognitive evolution, they suggest a development beyond the stage of mimetic cognition; a development that required new cognitive pathways for the construction and processing of abstract visual symbols. This is indicated in Figure 2 (below) by adding a V/S enclosed in a circle, with related linkages to the E and M systems. However, since the symbolic aspect was more indexical and/or iconic than it was abstract, Donald argues that the linkage between the V/S system and the M system was tentative and not solidly established. This is indicated in Figure 2 by showing a solid line linking V/S with E and a dashed link linking V/S with M.

Consider, however, the change in cognitive structure that was entailed by the early token accounting system. According to Schmandt-Besserat [1978, p. 57], the basic types of tokens were spheres, discs, cones and cylinders. Unlike the cave paintings, these were used as abstract symbolic representations of things of value. The basic tokens surely bore little, if any, indexical or iconic relationship to the things represented. In terms of Donald's diagrammatic depiction of cognitive structures, the use of these tokens entailed a solidifying of the linkage between V/S and M, and they entailed the tentative establishment of a linkage between the V/S structure and an emerging 'external memory field' (EXMF). Donald [1991] describes an external memory field as "essentially a cognitive workspace external to biological memory" [pp. 296-297]. He elaborates in a footnote: "The EXMF usually consists of a temporary array of visual symbols immediately available to the user. The symbols are durable and may be arranged and modified in various ways, to enable reflection and further visual processing" [1991, p. 297].

In accordance with this definition, the accounting tokens and their potential arrangements constituted a potential EXMF. And since Donald uses the term "external symbolic storage system" to refer to "all memory items stored in some relatively permanent external format" [1991, p. 306], the token accounting system also constituted an ESS and any related EXMF would be a subset of the ESS (the portion that is in use at any given time).8

The ESS represented by the token accounting system expanded as additional sub-types of tokens were created, as the tokens were modified by incisions and punch marks, as the representations of the tokens themselves were imprinted into clay envelopes, and as the related cuneiform writing was developed. In terms of cognitive structure, the EXMF is linked (initially, in a relatively tentative manner) to the visuo-symbolic cognitive system which, in turn, is tentatively linked with the linguistic cognitive system, as indicated in Figure 3. With each evolutionary step of this ancient accounting system the cognitive linkages between the V/S system and the budding EXMF became more substantial. These new cognitive developments are shown diagrammatically in Figure 3.