Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
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Giorgio Buccellati
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Differently from what it may seem at first, nomadism is not dynamic culturally . Precisely because people are on the move, meaningful contacts and true interrelations are considerably hampered. Nomadic groups tend to live in a state of isolation, there is no real sense of alterity vis--vis other groups. Not that their existence is ignored. But their identity remains fluid, without a real possibility for meaningful, structured contrasts. This may account in part for the very slow pace of progress in the Paleolithic period. Conversely, it may be said that social intercourse is greatly stimulating for cultural progress.
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Giorgio Buccellati
hances group identity, within and without the group within because stability adds the familiarity with a certain type of built environment that helps to define the group, and without because physically distinctive clusters of traits can be associated with the other as much as with the self. Some of the results of the quicker pace of cultural progress are: ? invention of the bow, the earliest instrument in which mechanical power was used; ? invention of the trap, the first device which could be set in motion while man was not present (these are the first true machines) ? beginning of basketry. But the most important result was the discovery of means of food production, which marks the beginning of a new phase.
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dietary habits and culinary recipes to the introduction of textiles, which entails a multi-stage manufacturing process, from spinning and dying to weaving.
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Giorgio Buccellati
the perceptual dimension of social relationships wi thin these evolving human groups: the role of function is pivotal in this respect. Finally, we will consider at the perceptual dimension of political forces, showing how leadership capitalized on their control of the tensional factors that coalesced into the state. Part of the growth in social complexity was the development of the notion of service. I define this as the systemic mechanism for catering to needs of others within the group. The systemic aspect is fundamental because it implies that a specific service is presupposed as an essential part of the social group, whether or not one knows the person that can provide the service. In other words, one expects the group as such to be endowed with the results of the various types of service; there is in effect a layering of presuppositions, since services come to presuppose other services in a nested sort of progression. Chart 7:1 shows the major moments of this process in outline form.
manufacturing
intuitive handling:
handling household:
intra-family group limited need for instructions or specialized users stone used as hammer (e wear patterns)
transfer of skills
localized exchange: intragroup transfer
transfer of products
primary manufacturing:
transformative manufacturing:
workshops
transfer of instructional techniques as static sets of interlocking and sequential steps
structured exchange:
beginning of specialized trade;
transformation of resources, resulting in the production of items that are not present in nature
kilns for pottery production; potters wheel; tools to produce manufactured results (sickle, architectural techniques; potter wheel, spindle whorl); tokens tools made for tools (arrow straighteners, perfume bottles);bricks for architecture (man made
building block)
symbolic manufacturing :
school
systemic exchange:
long term training as exchange mechanism
written tablets
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Giorgio Buccellati
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Giorgio Buccellati
Date 10000
Innovation
1 circumstantial leadership (i.e. limited to specific circumstances) long term planning, identification of agricultural cycles, animal husbandry (control of reproduction), weaving (multi-stage manufacturing), astronomy (recognition of recurrent patterns) creation of surplus (cause and consequence) specialization of man/product relationship, creativity and technical skill of producer, service to recipients sedentarization religious crystallization consolidation of settlements demographic expansion administrative crystallization
Evidence
bullae as ad hoc organization, grave goods marking role of individuals botanical identification of seed changes; sickles, zoological identification of bone changes, impressions on clay, representations on seals storage facilities agriculture artifacts (esp. pottery)
6000
4000 3000
6 7
delegation of power
housing conglomerates, irrigation long term investment in temple architecture monumental architecture, city walls (Uruk, Habuba, Terqa), surface surveys writing (Uruk, Jemdat Nasr; Fara, Salabikh, Ebla, Nippur, Lagash) hierarchy of titles in bureaucratic system bevelled rim bowls, industrial slavery (humans viewed purely as functional items) luxury goods, royal cemeteries (Ur)
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Giorgio Buccellati
means of a highly marked perimeter in the form of city-walls: they define the edge of solidarity of a well defined human group. The implications of this are twofold. (1) The city as an organism is larger than the sum total of individuals belonging to it . The total number of people who are tied together by the common links of solidarity within the city is larger than the sum total of individuals known to every single individual through face-to-face association; the threshold at which this phenomenon becomes true may be placed at between 3000 and 5000 individuals. That such a social organism could come into existence is indicative of a real quantum jump in the evolution of social groups. (2) What is more, such an organism implies the new functional definition of who (or rather what) its constituent members are. Their role within the group is derived from the function they serve within the organism, not from personal interaction or kinship ties among each other. There is, as it were, knowing without knowing. A given individual is recognized as having a given functional relevance for the functioning of the organism, i.e., as a potter, a soldier, a bureaucrat. The impersonal qualification through a function takes the place of personal qualification through direct contact. This functionalization of human beings, for the purposes of the social organism which they constitute, is another major alteration of the primary (and preexisting) natural order. Its extreme manifestation is the institution of slavery, which implies, at least in theory, a total depersonalization of the subject and slavery too, may be traced back to incipient urbanism.
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Professional differentiation : evidence from presupposed skills cumulation of culture humans viewed as (predictable) function holders standing professional classes (administrative, priestly, military, etc.) Boundaries: the physical outline of the city as a built environment is highlighted by the contrast with the fields around the presence of monumental architecture in general emphasizes the same perception, but in particular two types of construction: city walls are massive and provide a sharp definition to the boundary the ziggurat at the center of the settlement serves as a unifying pinnacle of social solidarity, visible from miles away
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Giorgio Buccellati
and exploit the presuppositions present in the phenomenon. Such leadership would articulate the practical and ideological themes which were to serve as goals for the activity of the group, it would devise the managerial procedures which were to implement them, it would take responsibility (i.e., credit) for the outcome. Leadership is synonymous with kingship, which also dates back to the urban revolution: the king was the apex of the social group, symbolizing its solidarity and providing the thrust which kept the momentum going. The other aspect which characterizes the birth of the state in Mesopotamia is the development of a bureaucratic apparatus which provided the backbone for the implementation of the royal directives. A key factor for an efficient exercise of power in the new urban context was the ability to communicate across functional boundaries within the social organism; the functional slots within the state were to be in functional contact with each other to allow for an effective operation of the system. This meant in practice two thingsbureaucracy and writing. (1) Delegation of authority was developed to a formal degree, so that rank could both correspond to an explicit, specific and recognizable level of manpower, and prevent personal presumptions beyond the assigned leve l. (2) Development of an impersonal communication system which would keep the flow of information unhampered from personal intervention or limitations. Such was the humus from which writing originated. As a tool in the workings of the social organism, writing is essentially an impersonal link among functional slots; only as a byproduct did written texts come to embody truly personal utterances of the human spirit, all the way up to poetry, and thus to mold eventually the channels for human self-expression. Because of its importance, more detail should be given on the antecedents and the nature of the first writing system of mankind.
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or not any individual king could, or would wish to, fulfill that role. Functionalization was perceived as a harsh reality, even if the perception was not articulated in our terms. And the king, at the same time that he was profiting from that reality, needed to make it not so much tolerable as desirable. Loyalty to him as a person was a benefit even though hardly any one among his subjects ever even saw him personally. Vicariously, his subjects related to him as a person. So, ironically, the very device that aims at compensating the impersonal dimension of the royal function and of the entire system on which it rests, became a function! The symbolic view of the king as father, shepherd, advocate was just that, a symbol, resting on a function projected and assumed, whether or not fulfilled.
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Giorgio Buccellati
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ply the correlation between a representational rendering of a gi ven item and the item itself.
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Giorgio Buccellati
uniformity of writing techniques and underlying codes (note the parallel with the development of computer programming today) Socio-political implications: maximization of energy vs. cumulation (1000 joggers/car) crystallization of behavioral routines (lists as constraints on grouping) organization as a visible entity with a life of its own; thus for instance, census taking projects a quantifiable view of the population) impersonal accountability (receipts/contracts as replacing personal commitment and the role of witnesses) segmenting of reality into finite, controllable units (tallies as projecting given scheme) professionalization of secondary services: scribes and bureaucracy (lexical lists) From history to post-history: the introduction of the computer in our own age is perhaps the only true parallel in the whole course of human development to the introduction of writing for this reason, we may think that we are gliding into post-history in terms of our definition, the computer provides an extrasomatic extensions of active brain functions: the manipulation of record takes place outside our brain rigidity of format, alienation