Tokens and Writing: The Cognitive Development

‘Ain Ghazal is a Neolithic site located near Amman, Jordan. It was excavated between 1982 and 1998 by an American-Jordanian team directed by Gary O. Rollefson, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wa. and Zeidan Kafafi, the University of Yarmouk at Irbid, Jordan. ‘Ain Ghazal was first settled about 7250 B.C., during the so-called Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period. In a matter of a few centuries the village of stone houses had spread over 30 acres along the Zarqa River. During a prosperous period when the mixed economy increasingly relied on farming, ca. 7250-6000 B.C., ‘Ain Ghazal witnessed what can be termed an explosion of symbolism. The site was abandoned in the Yarmoukian period ca. 5000 BC. The volume deals with the uniquely rich and varied ‘Ain Ghazal assemblage of symbols including tokens of many shapes, animal and human figurines, modeled human skulls, plaster statues and, mural and floor paintings.The paper analyses the development of the power of abstraction as illustrated by the evolution of counting in the ancient Near East. Tokens indicate that counting was first done concretely in one-to-one correspondence. The clay tokens, which were used at ‘Ain Ghazal about 7250-6500 bc, abstracted the goods they represented. For example, a cone abstracted a measure of grain. About 3300 bc, when tokens were kept in envelopes, markings on envelopes abstracted the tokens held inside. Abstract numbers are the culmination of the process, following the invention of writing.Art and Art Histor