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Canaanites/Canaan

1700-1500 BCE
Earliest inscriptions resembling phonetic alphabet
Center of economic and political activity between empires (Trade)

Phoenicians/Phoenicia

1500-300 BCE
Might just be Canaanites
Independent city states that shared the same culture
Skilled traders and seafarers

Phoenician alphabet

1050 BCE: Clearly identifiable, distinct from canaan script
22 letters, read right to left, no vowels
Vowels were implicit
Simplicity of alphabet allowed it to be adapted to multiple languages
Anyone could write - changed hierarchy view of writing
basis of different alphabets

Bronze Age Collapse

11th Century BCE
AKA Greek Dark Ages
Why the egyptians moved out of canaan
Greeks lost their early form of writing (linear A and linear B)
Phoenicians did well during this collapse because their trade excelled (due to lack of resources)

Linear A and Linear B

Linear A - Syllabic
Linear B - Comes from Linear A, syllabic and ideographic
Lost during dark ages

Greeks

Adapted Phoenician alphabet after loss of Linear A and Linear B
Added vowels (adapted to their way of speaking), 24 letters, left to right
Standardized into the ionic/euclidean alphabet - 400 BCE

Can Paul Grab Erica's Rack?

Canaan
Phoenician
Greek
Etruscan
Roman

Homo heidelbergensis

Traveled in groups
Species that controlled fire

Gesture-to-speech transition

Fire fueled this transition but did not invent language
1) Food prep
2) Dimness of fire did not allow for gestures
3) Fire prep required vocalized communication

Symbols

General category for concept (culturally specific)
Objects/markings that convey meaning
(eg. black \= death)

Paleolithic Symbol

Ochre: red pigments - mythical/religious affiliation
Antler
Fossil remains - boy and antler bones

Signs

Subcategory of symbols
Distinct, narrow, precise, and unambiguous
(eg. numbers)

Paleolithic + Mesolithic Sign

Conceptual shift - storing of information
Signs became organized, laid out in an intentional way (eg. bones marked with notches)

Neolithic Sign

Mesopotamian counting tokens

Push Master Nooney

Archaeological time order
Paleolithic
Mesolithic
Neolithic

Clay tokens

Different shapes \= different commodities (tells you what it is)
System - storage/manipulation of information
Separates the knower from the known (commodification and storage of knowledge)

Tokens as Economic Sign System

Neolithic era in middle east: beginning of agriculture - needing to quantify
Birth of accounting

Token system advantages

1) Simple
- Readily accessible materials (clay)
- Forms were plain, easy to duplicate (no special tools/skills needed)
- Functional regardless of dialect
- 1-1 correspondence (no abstraction of numbers)
2) Invited new modes of data processing and communication
- First mnemonic device able to handle/store unlimited quantity of data
- easy calculation
- enhanced importance of logic + rational decision making

Token system weaknesses/affordances

1) materially impractical at scale
- complex network hard to store
2) Only held 2 units of information: number and object
- Couldn't maintain history of transactions
3) Mathematically impractical at scale
- Couldn't handle unlimited data physically
- Could only manipulate small quantity of goods

Mesopotamia

5000-250 BCE
3300 BCE: Development of writing, turning point away from Stone Age to large settlements
Place where water floods against shore - agricultural practices thrive
Clay tablets, cuneiform, bullae emerges

Bullae

Clay envelope sealed by cylinder seal (signature of person, guarded against falsification)
Evidence of ownership - physical contract/protection
Works regardless of literacy
Shows division of labor and social hierarchy
Mobile contract (transported)

Clay tablets

Allowed for better information processing than bullae - complex forms of inscription (cuneiform)
In tandem with bullae
Complex record keeping (form + way of organization)

Qualites of clay tablets

Segmentation/organization of information (cognitive ability)
- nonlinear (impossible in speech), making space meaningful
- can emphasize certain information (title, page number, etc)
- Flat vs 3D sphere
- Stacking of tablets allowed contents to be surveilled (efficient access to information)

Cuneiform

Developed from years of symbol manipulation
Shift from pictographs to abstracted forms due to the need for efficiency (wet clay tablets would dry)
Literacy was uncommon outside ruling classes and scribe groups (not universal)

Etruscans

Pre Roman civilization
Coastal access brought them to the greeks
Alphabet had 26 letters, corresponding to the greek
Was unique to the speaking style of Etruscans

Romans

Founded in 753 BCE
Close cultural contact with Etruscans, constantly at war
Utility of etruscan alphabet was apparent and quickly adopted as romans did not have a writing system
The etruscan alphabet was unique to the speaking style of Etruscans
importance to written records for sustaining their empire, military power depended on management and administration of land conquered. How they kept large empire organized.
370 CE - Rome invasion
Literacy disappears, not alphabet due to dissemination (kept alive by Christian monks)
Monopoly on literacy - increased importance of church

Roman expansion timeline

Founding of Rome: 753 BCE
Rome ruled by Etruscans: 616 - 509 BCE
Founding of Roman Republic (emphasis on democratic election of leaders): 509 BCE
Founding of Roman Empire (rule under single autocratic leader): 27 BCE

Latin alphabet

Romans standardized the alphabet most closely to what we know today
23 letters (no J, U, W)

Eurocentrism

Ideology of european exceptionalism
Ignores non-western contributions
Believes the west is the ruler in which all cultures are measured

World systems perspective

Mode of analysis that advocates for multidisciplinary approach to world history and social change
Core: maintained power (economic, capital), always dominant. (Different countries can move in and out of this category based on fluctuations)
Semi and Periphery: labor and raw materials are extracted
Invention of printing:
Europe is peripheral, China is core

Cai Lun & Paper

Cai Lun created first traces of paper (in 105 CE) using pulp paste that could be pressed, flattened, and then dried
Less expensive and more transportable
This version would become the standard
Europe gets paper 1000 years after China

The Silk Road

Network of trade routes that was in use for 1500 years
Connects East and West - possibility of the transfer of knowledge from the east to the west (world systems perspective)

Diamond Sutra

First completed book through woodblock printing in 868 CE
Universal free distribution, not intended to be sold

Bi Sheng & Moveable Type

Created movable type in China (c. 1041-1049 CE)
Used one little block for each character
Not widely used in china
- Chinese inks did not stick well to metal
- Excess of labor in china made it cheaper to do woodblock printing - no pressure for innovation

Woodblock printing

Entire page of text from one block of wood
The development of more efficient techniques came from buddhism
- Reproducing sacred texts \= receive blessings
- Woodblock stamps would ritually reproduce icons

Johannes Gutenberg

Inventor of printing press
Made movable type more efficient in a European lens
Entrepreneurialism and capitalism changed the way people used technology to make a living - Gutenberg printed thousands of indulgences (documents the church would sell, resolving people of their sins for cash)

Gutenburg Bible

The major book of the middle ages, first mass produced book through movable type
Significantly cheaper than manuscript bibles (took years to make one), but the product was sold at a high price (3 years wages), not everyone had a bible

Printing press

European form of movable type
Now cheaper to print things resulting in more books
literacy was not restrained to the ruling class and members of the church
Rising merchant and middle class - education exists, despite not being easily accessible
Quickly, cheaply, efficiently spread scathing messages of the Church (eg. Martin Luther wrote critique called 95 theses)
Printing: tool of new arguments, and new ways of thinking of the world

The avvisi

Messengers who delivered handwritten letters to their clients
Origins in Venice
- Higher literacy rate amongst men
- Powerful trade center
- documentation mindset from Romans (Italians were descendants of Romans)
Content depended on location: rome (religious), venice (commercial matters for merchant community)
Used as political tool
- Interference paralyzed government functions
- suppressed or commissioned reports for their benefit

Newspapers

News was heard not read for most of history - shift
Development of news as a commodity
Numbered and published under the same name, effort to build a reputation around the name of the paper itself
First newspapers were commercializations of private news services of the ruling elite
Factual updating and data dumps - dry, straightforward way
Central figure was publisher - employed no journalists
Now, politics and economics were more relevant to more people

What were the different types of news pamphlets?

Relation: one-time publication about a single major event, like a battle or coronation
Coronto: a booklet about foreign affairs
Diurnal: a regular publication about a single subject, often the government
Mercury: booklet of events over a six month period

News Pamphlets

News created a disruption of the elite authority
Public opinion emerges as a phenomenon (Speaking back through print: rulers don't have universal control, causing upper class to pay attention to what lower classes think)
Traded in commercial excitement: dramatizing events for the reader, elicit emotional response

Optical telegraph

Simultaneous invention (like the alphabet - not one origin)
A technical apparatus to relay coded signals from tower to tower
System based on line of sight
Transmission code
Napoleon built large network of signal towers in France for military use
- Hesitant to switch to wireless, as the optical telegraphs were expensive, they knew how to use it, and it would have been a loss if they uprooted this system

Telegraphy

Mass medium that severs transportation from communication, flattens distance - Transmit orders in the shortest amount of time
The long distance transmission of messages between sender and receiver using a symbolic code which is, traditionally, an abstraction of the alphabet (Eg. flags)
Not telegraphy - conveying the words, not language (eg. smoke signals)

Transmission code

2 step code
Information was not sent out alphabetically - did not spell out message
Coded vocab of thousands of words, expressions, etc that could be identified in 2 or 3 symbols
Only people with the code book were those intended to receive the messages

Features of telecommunications

three features:
the network has users, and it is possible to establish a unique link between a relatively small number of nodes; privacy is a key dimension
what is sent along a network is a transmission \-- a coded signal that represents the message
telecommunication networks have directionality: the recipient can respond to the message in the same form
- interactivity within the system

Claude Chappe

Inventor of optical telegraph (1790s)
Developed during height of French revolution
Fast and fairly reliable tool for military

Wired telegraph

The optical telegraph was a direct inspiration
Used electricity
- Electricity was versatile and highly controllable form of energy
Diamond shaped
break link between human body and the message - didn't need to see it being sent to get its meaning
First commercial telegraph: needle telegraph, england (1830s)
Spelled out the words being sent one letter at the time

Samuel Morse & Electric telegraph

Created morse code and US electric telegraph (1840s)
On off magnetic force - switch, sending a message along the wire, opening and closing the circuit
Physical inscription that served as a receipt of the message
Modeled prototype on the french optical telegraph
First telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington 1844

Path dependence

Past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions.
- the future development of a system is affected by the path it has traced out in the past.
- eg. the first morse system and us telegraph line

Guglielmo Marconi

Developed wireless telegraph

Wireless telegraph

Invented by Guglielmo Marconi
Morse code was transmitted through the air, no wires
Lack of immediate buy-in, already existing structures of wired telegraphy
Appealed to places that were impossible to establish communication points - ocean (marital use)
- National navy were willing to put in money to establish wireless technology
Every ship could act like a transmitter (eg. how people got news of titanic sinking)
Closed the loop on communication, making it possible to transmit messages across oceans

First message sent through electric telegraph

"What had god wrought"

Morse code

Simplified symbol to 3 channels of information
Order and quantity of dots and dashes transform into an alphabetic code
Started to be taught as an audible language
Message could be sped up or slowed down

Wireless world

Changed people's understanding of speaking of the present
Is the present a sequence of events or a simultaneous now?
Felt experience of living in the present was changing

Alexander Graham Bell

One of the telephone's primary inventors
Had the first patent for a telephone (race for submission)
Collaborated with Thomas Watson - electrical designer
Created the telephone industry - Controlled standardization of telephone services during the 20th century
Brought international attention to the telephone at centennial exposition in 1876

Bell telephone company

Established in 1877
Business model: no one owned a phone, so they leased one.
- Leased out in pairs for simple 2-point communication
Monopoly

Patent

intellectual property that gives right to exclude others from use, enforceable by law
Last for 20 years
1790 - patent act
- created patents to encourage creators to share their inventions
Patent needed a diagram, not a prototype

Telephone exchange

Telephones needed an operator who connected the calls
Early users: businessmen, doctors, druggists - those who needed routine access at an office
Telephone changed how we thought about relationship with others, telephone became central in it
Telephone created disruptions to rigid social order - didn't have to be face to face for communication
Social order society
Phone lines smashed public and private space

Crystal radio

Use dial to use wire over surface of crystal
Sound was very quiet - needed headphones
didn't need electricity, therefore couldn't get external sound
Cheap and heavily associated with DIY culture - radio became an amateur hobby
No one regulated/owned the electromagnetic spectrum - means of radio transmission had no regulations and same with reception

Radio Act of 1912

legislate radio transmission in general, anyone wanting to transmit messages over the radio had to be licensed due to trolls
Restrict transmission waves for amateur radio operators - below 200
Ocean vessels had to carry radio equipment for distress calls

DXing

1920-1924
Distance learning
Trying to tune into as many far away stations as possible
Listening became a cognitive and emotional experience
Radio hobbyists - technical hobby
Slow death because of government regulation

broadcast

Frank conrad made first post-war radio broadcast - played records
Major electronics manufacturers made their own broadcast station, which would fuel buying radios
First commercial radio station: KDKA
First big broadcast 1920 - election day
Set scheduling
Transmission of audio or visual signals to a dispersed audience, usually via the airwaves (electromagnetic spectrum)