Writing in Early Mesopotamia: The Historical Interplay of Technology, Cognition, and Environment

The aim of this paper is to explore the dynamics of writing in ancient society, with a special focus on Mesopotamia. In particular, using the so-called Uruk phenomenon as a case study, I argue that writing emerged, developed, and contributed to the shape of the environment and society in a reciprocal feedback process within the Mesopotamian context. The Uruk phenomenon derives its name from the city where urban culture first originated, roughly by the middle of the fourth millennium BCE, in present day southern Iraq. The cognitive implications of this writing technology, as well as its impact on subsequent modes of human interactions documented from epigraphical and archaeological records, are also discussed.