AR53. 9 June 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Sharpe and Leslie Van
Gelder. All rights reserved.
In process. Zipf #2. **For Nature/Science
or Antiquity/CAJ/Phil. Trans. of Royal Society of
Using Zipf’s Law to Demonstrate the Notational Nature of Prehistoric Art
Graduate College, Union Institute &University,
Harris
ksharpe@ksharpe.com
www.ksharpe.com
and
Leslie Van Gelder
leslievg@ksharpe.com
ABSTRACT.
KEY WORDS.
CONTENTS.
· Where do I want to take this?
o After panels in Rouffignac.
o After panels and baton in Gargas.
· I really want other people to take this up.
· Could do a more thorough analysis of all these panels, with different variables, i.e., grammars, etc. With forensics where possible and helpful.
· Espouse a greater study of notation. Move to engraved severines.
· Issues of translation.
· Look at possible application to Koonalda.
· Animal scratches: should have a different result. Maybe this is an important difference. But theoretically, given the number of fingers or claws, should there be any difference or significance? Maybe this relates to the issue of whether Zipf can apply to flutings when fingers per unit is the variable; i.e., maybe it is purely a chance phenomenon (in which case for animals or humans, there should be a flat graph).
· The translation stuff is where I wanted to go initially (i.e., after Koonalda) and perhaps I just want to lay down these possibilities.
· As a book, this work might have greater influence.
Similar to AR52: some panels look structured (Gargas bones look the same); versus some looking haphazard. Therefore notation? See d’Errico on this. AR52: some notational stuff indicated using a Zipf analysis.
·
Paul Bahn, 'Cracking the
·
The places
where the lines form a maze: would this be writing? How to disentangle them:
u/v light?
·
Go through
other works and ideas to see if anything relevant.
·
Can’t
assume they mean the same thing as the styles, forms, etc., are so different.
·
Some seem
to be meaning in the production – i.e., it’s the act of fluting that’s
meaningful. So the question is to do with the flutings where the act of making
them isn’t as much as perhaps the look of the final product.
·
Do
structural/internal and forensic analyses first.
·
This might
work with Kirian lines as well as Rugolean ones.
Could make this a
focus of this paper. Empirically redefine the categories (decoration, tally,
notation?, … protowriting, writing…maybe use different words). The writing types
may be defined by -1 Zipf slopes but differentiated by amounts of
Lots of literature review on d’Errico.
The following is the full length version of the first Zipf paper now drastically cut.
Another
discussion provisionally accepts the -1 result and focuses on the implications
of this for the ‘notational’ nature – and related purposes – of the fluted
panels. The -1 rules out their purely decorative character.
The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language defines this sense of ‘notation’ as: ‘A system of figures or symbols
used in a specialized field to represent numbers, quantities, tones, or
values.’ The Archaeology Dictionary elaborates (2007): ‘Paleolithic
notation is the term used by archaeologists for deliberate markings made by our
ancestors to count objects or remember events in a sequence.’ This applies to
sequences of ‘single-stroke lines (produced by single movement of the tool
tip), notches produced by a back-and-forth movement of the cutting edge), and
microcupules (produced by a rotation or pressure of the tool tip) on stone,
bone, antler, ivory, and amber’ (d’Errico 1992: 95). In the way we use the
elaboration of the word ‘notation’ in the Archaeology
Dictionary, the first of the uses, ‘to count objects,’ refers to the making
of tallies and need not record any sense of time passing. They are independent
of time. The second sense, to ‘remember events in a sequence,’ can require, and
to separate it from the first meaning we assume it does require, the recording
in some way of the time element of the sequence.
Denise
Schmandt-Besserat writes (1997: 91) of such marks first being symbols of
magical or religious significance. Then, later in the development of mind, they
became tallies, ‘each notch representing one item of which to keep
track…entered according to the basic principle of one-to-one
correspondence,…matching each unit of the group to be tallied with one notch.’
She thus thinks (1997: 91) of ‘the notches as signs promoting the accumulation
of knowledge for specific ends…the storing and communicating of concrete
information.’
The
tallies remained, however, a rudimentary device. For one thing, the notches
were unspecific and could suggest an unlimited field of interpretations.
Marshack postulates that the signs stood for phases of the moon; others have
hypothesized that they served to keep a tally of animal kills. But there is no
way to verify their meaning. In fact, the notched bones were limited to
recording quantitative information concerning things known by the tallier but
remaining enigmatic to anyone else (Schmandt-Besserat 1997: 92).
The
actual meaning of the tally has become lost, though someone might try
hypothetically to reconstitute it. ??? this Azilian example actually isn’t about
tallies but about designs ??? As
an example, d’Errico writes from his (1994) study of markings on Azilian
pebbles:
We
found that they had always been made by rapid, repeated tool movements. In
addition, most of the neighboring marks were made by the same tool, while in
many cases all the marks on a given pebble had been produced by the same tool
in a single series of operations….One is thus tempted to conclude that
prehistoric [people were] more interested in the overall result….The actions
that produced them seem to be the expression of a repeated pattern (d’Errico
1989: 117; see also Lewin 1989).
Unfortunately,
the tally interpretation keeps being raised (e.g., Bullington and Leigh 2002)
without appreciation of the points above and below. The body of artifacts is
complex and defies a single let alone a simple interpretation as
time-independent tally marks recording or counting by ‘the repeated addition of
one unit’ at a time (Schmandt-Besserat 1997: 114). In particular, the two
panels studied from
The
tally interpretation corresponds to the Archaeological
Dictionary definition of notation as ‘to count objects,’ without a record
of time. One can imagine a piece of bone on which were simple tally-like
incisions ‘made by repeated actions, with no lapse in continuity, using the
same tool.’ But, continues d’Errico (Marhsack and d’Errico 1989: 498), ‘because
to the naked eye all the lines appear identical,’ they cannot actually
constitute a notational system. If, on the artifact, there is no way to
distinguish between the marks, there is no way of gaining informational content
from them. This is more than Schmandt-Besserat’s point of a loss of meaning
because the tally makers and users have died out. D’Errico’s point is that, to
an outsider, the set of marks could have little meaning because the differentiation between the constituents
of the sequence is lost or did not exist. Thus a lunar calendar only of
identical incised markings and produced in one sitting to chart a woman’s
menstrual cycle (Boroneant et al. 1979: 606) may well be a counting tally, but
is neither a calendar nor notational. Similarly, ‘lunar calendars, cyclic
notations, “marques de chasse,” or kill scores envisaged in the past are devoid
of practical foundation,’ writes d’Errico (1989: 117), unless their creation
involved ‘several distinct operations over a relatively long period and in all
probability the use of more than one tool.’ ‘To recover information in
notations ‘based on serial markings requires patterns allowing a visual and/or
tactile discrimination of the signs,’ writes d’Errico (1998: 25).
This
leads to the second notational approach – in the Archaeological Dictionary as to ‘remember events in a sequence.’
Here, to think of the portable bones and stones with lines and other marks
engraved on them are considered time dependent – the mark compilations
noticeably made over time and not, as with a tally, all in one sitting – i.e.,
as containing the information d’Errico requires. Time-dependent ‘notation’
usually holds preeminence in usage over the tally sense, but, it turns out,
many artifacts do not necessarily support it. A ‘slow accumulation’ of
identical marks on an artifact, where ‘each of them or a group of them
represented, for prehistoric people, an event, whether natural or cultural,’
from different times, writes d’Errico (Marshack and d’Errico 1989: 498), ‘would
have to have been made at intervals over a period of time.’ If so, they were
probably made ‘with more than one tool’ (d’Errico 1992: 94). Several observable
factors could indicate this: for example, ‘repeated changes of tool, variations
in marking techniques, in the arrangement of marks and in mark morphology….When
marks are created by stone tools, for example, a change of tool will probably
take place between each new stage of marking if the periods stages are
relatively long’ (d’Errico 1998: 22). Sometimes the marks were made in subsets.
Discriminating between the signs ‘implies a certain degree of isomorphism of the
signs and their arrangement in a way which would enable them to be “read.”’ For
the modern investigator, it is a matter of ‘understanding the variability of
the operational chains that produced similar motifs by trying to identify the
elements that most interested prehistoric people’ (Marshack and d’Errico 1989:
499; see also d’Errico 1994: 185-186).
D’Errico
thus builds his case against Marshack’s notational interpretations, including
the idea of Paleolithic lunar calendars. Marshack, the father of the study of
notation in the archaeological context (starting at least with his 1964 paper),
writes (1998: ¶2): ‘Pre-agricultural record-keeping and notations…were not
‘linguistic’ or arithmetic….They were records of elapsed time, of the
periodicities observed in nature, including the months and seasons.’ D’Errico
disputes elements of both Marshack’s method and conclusions. (D’Errico
refers especially to his study of Azilian pebbles, but Marshack states [1989;
see also his 1995] that he too previously concluded the Azilian pebbles are not
notational.)
The dispute is instructive (d’Errico 1989; 1998: 20; Lewin 1989; Marshack
1989; 1995; 1997; Marshack and d’Errico 1989).
Marshack writes (Marshack and d’Errico 1989: 491) that ‘the primary test for
the presence of notation’ with engraved marks is ‘that they be carefully made and accumulated linearly and sequentially.’ While
d’Errico disagrees (Marshack and d’Errico 1989: 498) with this ‘primary test,’
the main issue he has with Marshack’s work is that one of Marshack’s methods to
demonstrate the test is flawed (Marshack and d’Errico 1989: 495-497). Marshack
thinks he shows his ‘calendars’ are time-dependent in their construction
because he detects changes in the cross-sections of the marks, hence of tools,
hence of the time periods for the engraving, and hence they could be
notational. But d’Errico shows Marshack’s studies do not necessarily find these
changes. D’Errico’s disagreement with Marshack’s ‘primary test’ in fact has to
do with differentiating between the marks, the issue in distinguishing between
tallies and notations, which Marshack thinks he does but which d’Errico shows
he does not.
??? This area has three mentions of the use of different tools over time
(d’Errico)
‘The
only systematic effort to disprove [my] studies, by F. d’Errico, of France,’
recounts Marshack (1998: ¶2; see also his 1995),
‘recently admitted that his more recent studies had confirmed the presence of
notation in the Upper Paleolithic, though he does not as yet know why they
should have been kept or what the mode of notation consists of.’ Time appears to have come down on d’Errico’s
side as to the unknownness of the meaning of the notations and the shortcomings
of Marshack’s techniques, but still there remains support for Marshack’s insistence
on some of the objects he studied being notational. To assist him in his
research, d’Errico carries out investigations with a scanning electron
microscope, and he reproduces the artifacts to see the results that might be
achieved by engraving in various ways. Working and pioneering 2-3 decades
earlier, Marshack depends on a regular optical microscope at best and does
little reproductive work. Bednarik says (2007: ¶4) Marshack relies ‘essentially
on visual judgment acquired from close familiarity with the materials.’ His
primary method of analysis to recognize notational markings, in fact, ‘cannot
furnish conclusive evidence for or against interpretation as notation’
(Bednarik 2007: ¶8).
D’Errico
wrote to one of us (KS) about flutings and notations several years ago (1997;
regarding Sharpe and Lacombe 2003), specifically about the possibility of
flutings being notations: ‘The problem is how to create a theoretical and
analytical tool able to verify whether they are or not.’ This is what this Zipf
analysis attempts. The two panels studied in Rouffignac pass the test of Zipf
and therefore are not random or decoration, but efficiently transfer
communication at least through their structure around the variable of the
number of fingers used per unit. Further, they are probably not
time-independent tallies or time-dependent or notations because all the units
in each were probably all made at the same time and yet are differentiable. The
full internal and forensic analyses of the panels may help explain this further
because they should show whether the same or a series of different people
fluted the units. Initial results, however, show a small group of fluters were
involved at one time. Are the fluted panels notational in another sense of
‘notation’?
‘How
many types of “notation” can humans develop?’ asks d’Errico (1998: 20). ‘How
many of them will we be able to identify among the archaeological material?’
Marshack theoretically has the time element in his understanding of ‘notation’
and d’Errico at first has it too. By the mid 1990s, however, d’Errico seems to
have dropped this element as essential (rather, it seems to have become only
one type of notation) and he adopts a more general understanding of ‘notation.’
He produced the following model, though still provisional, and in part answers
his questions about the types of notation. It
considers
three types of notation: (1) the elements constituting the system differ from
each other…; (2) the elements themselves are identical but can be
differentiated by their distribution on the surface (e.g., organization by
groups); (3) the marks cannot be differentiated (identical and equidistant
elements).
In the last case, two possibilities arise: (3a) the elements of the
notation were produced at the same time (in this case, after a certain lapse of
time it becomes impossible for the engraver or other group members to
differentiate one element from another); (3b) the elements were added over the
course of time. To each event (or events) corresponds the addition of one or more
new elements. If made with a lithic tool, it is probable that numerous tool
changes were involved in this last type of notation. To be able to clearly
distinguish sets made by the same tool from sets made by several tools is thus
a major aspect of this research (d’Errico 1994: 194-195).
This might empty the word
notation. It might be better to use different terms for the different types,
i.e., allow the data to dictate the types. Four years later, d’Errico adopts (1998) the idea of
‘artificial memory systems’ for these Paleolithic artifacts. This may prove a
fruitful category because, for one thing, it may broaden the idea of
‘notation.’ It appears even more based on the markings themselves rather than
on preconceived interpretations and categories.
What
other of these categories than ‘notation’ may apply to the Rouffignac panels?
Protowriting? Writing? In his Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Florian Coulmas defines (1996: 376)
‘protowriting’ as (see also Sharpe and Lacombe 2002): ‘an array of visual
signs…used for information storage and communication. They include decorations
on objects such as pottery vessels, message sticks, clay pebbles, knotted
cords, and seal impressions marking property, among others.’
Coulmas
also defines (1996: 560) a writing system as ‘a set of visible or tactile signs
used to represent units of language in a systematic way, with the purpose of
recording messages which can be retrieved by anyone who knows the language in
question and the rules by virtue of which its units are encoded in the writing
system.’ Writing visibly records language, its words or sounds. Its makes its
norm phonemic and it attempts to symbolize every significant sound in the
language.
Note
that writing, protowriting, and notations can exist side by side; one does not
necessarily replace or evolve from either of the others. ‘When we drive to an
airport,’ Michael Stitt explains (2007), ‘the road signs constitute a
protowriting system of pictograms, and if the airport is in a country whose
language we do not speak, we navigate through the airport by means of another
protowriting system.’ Writing systems can also be viewed as notational, writes
Coulmas (1996: 356), ‘since by representing languages they at the same time
function as descriptions of languages which single out certain aspects rather
than others.’ But he adds (1996: 377) that ‘a systematic relationship between
the symbol inventory and linguistic units is what distinguishes writing from
other visual recording devices.’ He also says (1996: 376), ‘the theoretical
problem is…to identify non-arbitrary and coherent criteria which distinguish
protowriting from writing proper.’ Herein lies an active research issue in
itself (see, e.g., Damerow 2006), and one perhaps pertinent to the Rouffignac
panels.
Historians
usually distinguish between prehistory and history, however, defining history
as the advent of writing. Cave paintings and the petroglyphs of prehistory may
be considered precursors of writing, but not writing because they do not
directly represent language. This appears an arbitrary, nonempirical value
judgment; whether they did represent language means knowing something of the
original language spoken. We do not know how or what the Rouffignac fluters
spoke. Many scholars would probably not consider the fluted panels writing in
the full sense of our modern forms of writing, being rather complex and
thinking of the supposed Paleolithic varieties as very simple. But is this only
our modern bias?
How
from the artifacts might we distinguish protowriting and writing from notation?
What is the move methodologically from distinguishing notation from
protowriting and from that to writing, or from evidence of notation to evidence
of protowriting to evidence of writing?
Turning
to the Zipf results, how do the panels as efficient communication relate to
notation, protowriting, and to writing? Since flutings like these, along with
other line markings, are usually considered notational or candidates for
notation, what has been overlooked in the seeing of them as protowriting or
even writing? On the other hand, though they give a -1 Zipf gradient, they may
not be complex enough to represent a physical form of speech, unless
distinguishing the grammatical variables (see the discussion below) can provide
substantial insight. If they do have sufficient complexity to consider them a
form of writing, we might research the type of writing they constitute:
alphabetic, featural, logographic, or syllabic. Ideographic forms (symbols for
ideas) never developed sufficiently to represent language. Pictographic forms
insufficiently represent language on their own, but often form the core of
logographies.
The
above discussion on decorations, time-independent tallies, time-dependent
notations, artificial memory systems, protowriting, and writing blurs the
relationship between the various terms, and renders the categories artificial
and perhaps out of touch with the data d’Errico, his colleagues, and we are
discovering. The above questions, in fact, may direct research on Paleolithic
engravings and flutings into futile directions. Whatever the study of them, it
needs to focus on data in the artifacts and not try to fit them into
preconceived category or set of categories with inconsistent and apparently artificial
meanings. We may need to continue studying the artifacts and then create the
categories – maybe drawing on some aspects of the current collection – out of
the empirical data found.
Several
matters concerning the data used for this study beckon exploring, besides the
need for continual vigilance about the data collected and the means for
ascertaining and interpreting them.
The
first matter requires performing a full internal analysis, especially showing
the overlays and thereby the temporal sequence of the flutings. Was the panel
made from left to right? How would the sequence of fluting change the data
derived from the panels for a Zipf analysis? D’Errico writes about (1992: 96)
some of the Azilian pebble engravers adding their new lines by ‘aligning each
new incision to the right of the preceding one’
i.e.,
in the manner natural for a right-handed person. Some of the neighboring marks
also turned back on or criss-crossed each other. The same effect could be
produced experimentally by making marks with no particular intention of making
each one an individual creation….Some pebbles had a further set of incisions
superimposed on a previous set, an arrangement that defies ready
interpretation. The idea that these marks are a form of writing must surely be
rejected. It is impossible to attach a meaning to any single incision (1989:
117).
This does not seem because of the right-handedness of the
engraver, d’Errico reflects, but from the symbolic meaning of the engraving
(1992: 100). It will be interesting to see how d’Errico’s judgment here relates
to the method used by the Rouffignac fluter(s) of the panels. For one thing,
the flutings are variable by the number of each unit, different from the
‘single incisions’ on the pebbles.
Second,
we need to perform a forensic analysis on the panels and see how this affects
the Zipf analysis. It would differentiate the various fluters of each panel and
inform our understanding of the period over which the panels were fluted.
The
third matter involves exploring the use of gauges like the
The
fourth involves further exploration of the variables that separate or differentiate
the units and that therefore transfer information and differentiate it from
random marks. Nadis writes:
This
is fairly straightforward when the language in question has detailed spelling
and grammar rules. In English, for example, ‘e’ is the most commonly used
letter, and ‘q’ is almost always followed by ‘u.’ Similar rules dictate word
usage and frequency. So searching for statistical correlations between words,
letters and other symbols provides a way to work out what is being conveyed
(Nadis 2003: 37).
We
need to break the panels into components, ‘working out where one discrete
segment ends and the next begins’ (Nadis 2003: 37). Our first attempt as used
in this paper involved identifying natural breaks in the system, probably the
most obvious one being the separation into units and their obvious differences
namely the number of fingers used in each unit.
Zipf’s
Law can help find these variables. One can select a variable and test it using
Zipf’s Law to see if it is significant for the efficient communication
supposedly occurring with the phenomenon being studied.
For
example, if Morse code is analyzed one dot or dash at a time, the line on the
Zipf plot is almost flat. At first glance, this would not seem like a promising
signal. But if the dots and dashes are taken two at a time, the slope goes up.
When dots and dashes are examined in groups of four, roughly the size of
letters [words], the slope approaches -1. ‘Then you know you’ve sampled
correctly because a -1 slope cannot occur by chance,’ Doyle says. So if you
want to work out the correct units, simply tinker with a Zipf plot, trying
different combinations (Nadis 2003: 38).
Zipf’s
law helps determine if any old observable is significant communications wise.
Finding these variables is tantamount to finding the grammatical structure of
the system behind the fluted panels. Another potential significant variable
might involve the diagonal units under the vertical ones: perhaps they qualify
the meaning context.
A
further data issue that we would like to resolve concerns the dating of the
flutings in
The
sixth potential exploration is to try to use a Zipf analysis on other examples
of line markings (what we call ‘severines’ [Sharpe and Van Gelder 2006a]) not
only fluted on cave walls in Rouffignac (e.g., the Patriarch Panel in Chamber
J, other panels in Chamber G such as the Henri Panel, and the various clusters
in Chamber E) and elsewhere, but also engraved on bones and stones. In this it
may well as a technique supplement the careful and indispensable work being
done by d’Errico and his colleagues by very close examination and replication
techniques on portable artifacts.
The
results of d’Errico’s work offer hypotheses on the fluted panels and a seventh
direction for further data research. He writes (1998: 46) from his research on
portable objects, that ‘codes based on the combination of two and possibly
three factors (morphology, spatial distribution, and accumulation over time)
appear to be present from the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.’ How much the
evidence from the fluted panels augments this will be interesting. Also
interesting will be how the evidence from the panels interacts with other of
d’Errico’s general observations and conclusions, for instance whether there is
a ‘formal distinction between marks juxtaposed on a single alignment, or [ones
that] rely on the semiological technique of spatial grouping’ (d’Errico 1998:
46). Both of the fluted panels studied here include images of animals (mammoths
or rhinoceroses), plus in the case of the Rhinoceros Horn Panel, a tectiform.
These might be classified as ‘emblems’ as d’Errico uses the term, a feature in
common with many of the portable artifacts that associate emblems with markings
(d’Errico 1998: 46). On the other hand, fluted walls and engraved portable
objects appear to show a significant difference, namely between the number of
fingers in a fluted unit versus a single marking in an engraved, notched, or
microcupled unit. This offers another interesting twist to the discussion.
Several
of d’Errico’s speculations may be open to investigation from the fluted panels
here investigated or to be investigated. He writes:
the
increase in the number of marks and sets appearing at the end of the
These elements of continuity might imply that, during the European
Upper Palaeolithic, the production and use of artificial memory systems took
place in similar social contexts. It is possible that only a few individuals
were fully aware of the more complex codes, and that this competence was only
one element of the role that these individuals played within Paleolithic
societies. Individuals specialized in storing memory among preliterate human
groups, such as older members of the community, initiated individuals or
‘bards,’ are the best candidates for being those who created, transmitted, and
eventually modified artificial memory systems both in their artifactual reality
and in the organization of their codes (1998: 47).
Our
forensic research in Rouffignac will help ascertain who were the individuals
who created the fluted panels.
If the two
panels studied here are indeed efficient communication (whether notation,
protowriting, or writing), the issue remains as to what they mean or at least
meant to their fluters. This may never be known and should not be expected to
be known. Suppose the results provided in this paper do hold up to further
theoretical and data scrutiny. Are the panels still notation or has a step been
made toward their being shown to be writing, albeit probably an
‘unsophisticated’ form of protowriting in comparison to our own? An exploration
of
Previously
we published (e.g., Sharpe and Van Gelder 2006c) on the inadequacy of several
attempts at saying what is the meaning, intention, or the origin of so-called
‘geometric’ flutings such as the panels under consideration, including the
shamanic, phosphene, and the pseudohallucination hypotheses. We can at present
only study such artifacts with the tools available – which provide information
on the panels’ structure and on the fluters who made them, then whether the
flutings are random or intentionally structured – and, given the latter, their
grammar (finding the variables that provide a -1 slope on a Zipf analysis) and
their level of sophistication (using the Shannon entropy). Future
methodological advancements may add to these possibilities, but they may well
not include meaning. The current tools and future ones as well, however, do and
may even more so rule out various meaning proposals (e.g., the Desbordes Panel
in Chamber A1 of Rouffignac Cave includes flutings by young children aged about
5 and this tends to rule out several potential meanings for them such as their
having to do with male initiation ceremonies [Sharpe and Van Gelder 2006b-c]).
Finally,
we need to revisit the research challenge raised at the beginning of this
paper, namely to find a way to distinguish between random and intentionally
structured panels of finger flutings. The result of our approach is the
possibility of saying the panels are notation/protowriting/writing, but that
was not the initial issue. Zipf’s Law can help distinguish random from
intentionally structured, and it goes further to decide on communication and
grammar. It seems too powerful a method for merely distinguishing between
random and intentionally structured panels; there may be other ways to merely
distinguish intentional structure without going so far as efficient
communication. On the other hand, Zipf’s Law being a heavy hitter may not
matter.
Note
that we have not shown the random nature of the Gargas fluted panel in Figure
1. ‘Random’ could relate to purely aesthetic or tactile reasons, and this could
relate to intention. In this case we have random but intentioned though not
structured.
The application of a Zipf’s analysis to fluted panels provides the possibility that a higher cognitive function exists for lines previously ignored or considered relatively unimportant, usually in favor of fluted figures such as of animals and that these were given the higher cognitive function.
Full on Zipf, including critique.
·
Does
Zipf’s law help determine if an observable is significant communications wise?
Applying a Zipf analysis to Ogham.
·
Re Ogham
lines – look like Rugolean (without the base line).
·
Could
Ogham help us? With Ogham, even if we find the letter equivalents, what about
the words? I suppose there’s some way of translating these. If the flutings
were a form of Ogham, I wonder if we have anything more than names (as in
Ogham, supposedly)?
·
Does
Zipf’s law work for Ogham?
·
Look at
the history of Ogham, its source, and translations. Similarly, the history of
the Celts. Where did they come from?
Writing?
·
Can we break a cluster of structured units
into ideational units (called motifs or something)? If so, how do the
ideational units of one cluster compare with those of another cluster? (Maybe
this is as close as we can get to meaning.)
·
Are there repetitions of structures?
·
The biggest question I face is whether the
markings are structured culturally or individually. There is a certain amount
of cultural consistency, but how much? Only further consistent stucturalisms
will answer that.
·
Suppose they
are communications; then what is the alphabet and what is the grammar? The
alphabet seems to be: # fingers, angle, existence of horizontals, of base lines
(see their existence in tectiforms), of verging into a line (very much like
Ogham). A case for this can be made from Ogham. Look also at the
·
Show they
are communications.
Translation i.e., meaning?
Can we get it by using Ogham as a model?
·
Are there
repetitions of structures?
·
How do the symbols function (not what they might mean).
·
The old
myth of the rain fertilizing the ground -- in dark
-- in the ground (ie., in a cave)
Cutting the rock to make the old man bleed
(Mulvaney in Kenneth site of rainbow snake -- rainmaking).
· The big challenge now is to ask the MEANING OF THE LINES.
·
Treat them
as Ogham as a way of to understand them (like a model without saying this is
exact).
·
Could we
treat or assume these are only names (as in Ogham?)? There’s a case for people
doing this in caves (contemporary graffiti).
·
Can a
writing system remain the same more or less for tens of thousands of years?
Upper Paleolithic to the Celts, etc.
Many other potential applications from prehistoric ‘art.’
·
Numbers of
lines grouped together matter like the number of fingers per unit in Rugolean
seem to matter.
·
Do a
Zipf’s law job on the Öküzini pebble, and see if we can extend this work to
mobiliary artifacts.
Different variables. With a Zipf analysis, to see if any are significant.
·
Are there
any other significant variables? Do a list of all possible variables and why in
this cluster some are significant and others are not.
·
One of the characteristics that seems to apply to all the
possible notational clusters we've seen (in Rouffignac and Gargas) are
horizontals going through or under some of the verticals. I think this might
also apply to the Gargas engraved bones. Check out Ogham because I think this
applies also to some of its letters or meanings.
·
The
question, given the desire to look for repeating or informative structures, is
to find variables in the lines that might give this. One is the number of lines
used in a unit. (There are potentially many others – does this provide a basic
method for looking at many of the severines – i.e., they may not all have the
same significant variables, decide on those that may be significant.)
·
It looks
as though the number of lines in a unit does vary.
·
Need to
run our variables through Zipf’s law. What are some other meaning-giving
variables? (Angle, direction, length.) Apply Zipf’s law to them.
·
Look at
diagonals as a potential qualifier of context.
·
Check
against short hand: there are evidently also a lot of lines here. // Shorthand
also evidently uses emphases such as darker lines as opposed to lighter ones to
indicate different meanings: can we use this too for severines, e.g., is the
depth of a line a significant observable?
·
Is there
an equivalent to the base (as in Ogham?)?
· Do certain marks (e.g., curls at the tops or dots) take on a new significance as indicators (as in Ogham?)?
·
(
·
Analogy with Ogham (includes looking for structural clues)
·
Apply
Zipf’s law in various ways according to what may be significant variables.
Other information content measures.
·
Is there anything
else besides Zipf and Ogham to help with getting at writing? I was before
looking for structural consistencies.
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