Connecting the Dots: Counting, Writing, and the Beginnings of Civilization

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Foreword – Marcella Frangipane

A Note from a Student – Michael Erard

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Longing for a Challenge. Paris, 1959–1965

Chapter 2: Becoming American. Boston, Massachusetts, 1965–1971

Chapter 3: The Right Place at the Right Time. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965–1971

Chapter 4: Excavating Museums. The Middle East, 1971

Chapter 5: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Texas, 1972

Chapter 6: Making a Splash. The University of Texas at Austin, 1972–2004

Chapter 7: Something Unexpected

Chapter 8: Tokens Revolutionize Neolithic Symbolism

Chapter 9: Paradigm Shift

Chapter 10: Bringing Order to Chaos

Chapter 11: Eureka!

Chapter 12: The Data Revolution

Denise Schmandt-Besserat Publications

Index

About the Author

Denise Schmandt-Besserat is Professor Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin. She is best known for introducing tokens to archaeology. Working alone, she documented that the artifacts were used continuously between 7500 and 3000 BC in a vast area of the ancient Middle East, extending from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. She created the token typology of 16 types and over 300 subtypes, showing an evolution from plain-faced in the Neolithic, to bearing complex markings in the Bronze Age. Crucially, she identified the function of tokens as concrete counters used in a one-to-one correspondence, ultimately determining that the sketches of tokens on tablets contributed to history by becoming pictographs in the cuneiform script, the world’s first writing.