See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/240433797

Neolithic informatics: The nature of information

Article in International Journal of Information Management · February 2009

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2008.11.001

CITATIONS READS

44 2,058

1 author:

Paul Beynon-Davies
Cardiff University
204 PUBLICATIONS 4,074 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Paul Beynon-Davies on 20 March 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 NEOLITHIC INFORMATICS: THE NATURE OF INFORMATION

Paul Beynon-Davies
Cardiff Business School
Cardiff University
Beynon-DaviesP@cardiff.ac.uk

Abstract
The term informatics is used as an umbrella term to stand for the overlapping disciplinary areas of
Information Systems, Information Management and Information Technology. The current paper is
part of a series which documents an overarching attempt to develop a clearer and more sophisticated
systematics for the area. It examines one of the foundation concepts of informatics - that of
information - and aims to provide a definition for this concept based upon ideas from semiotics and
communication theory. For this purpose we introduce the concept of a sign-system and consider the
role such a system plays in human communication. We also highlight the fundamental difference
between a communication system and an information system. To help ground our discussion and
provide a necessary distance from the present-day concern with digital computing and communication
networks we engage with the historiography of information. We consider the use of information in
Neolithic times and describe the case of clay tokens in Ancient Sumeria as one of the earliest examples
of information representation and manipulation. Examination of this case allows us to propose a
number of universal features of information and ‘information technology’.
Keywords: Informatics, Information, Information Technology, Universals, Ancient Sumeria

Biography
Paul Beynon-Davies is currently professor of business informatics at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff
University. Before taking up an academic post, Professor Beynon-Davies worked for several years in
the Informatics industry in the UK. He still regularly acts as a consultant to the public and private
sector particularly in the area of ICT and its impact on organizational performance. He has published
widely in the field having 10 books and over sixty academic papers to his name. Professor Beynon-
Davies has engaged in a number of projects related to the impact of ICT on the economic, social and
political spheres, both in the UK and Europe.
 NEOLITHIC INFORMATICS: THE NATURE OF INFORMATION

‘Individuals applied their minds to symbols rather than things and went beyond the world of concrete
experience into the realm of conceptual relations created within an enlarged time and space universe.
The time world was extended beyond the range of remembered things and the space world beyond the
range of known places’ (Innis, 1950).

1. INTRODUCTION

In a previous paper (Beynon-Davies, 2007) we argued that the locus of the discipline of informatics is
the concept of an information system. The term informatics is used as a convenient umbrella term to
stand for the overlapping disciplinary areas of Information Systems, Information Management and
Information Technology. Within this earlier paper we used the non-traditional case of information-
handling in the Inca Empire to help ground our discussion. Since its publication, the paper was given
the Emerald award for excellence for journal papers published in business and management during
2007. The author has also had correspondence with a number of academics who have found the article
useful not only as a research paper but as a teaching case. The material also appears to have been
referred to within some practitioner outlets as a useful framing of the distinction between an
information system and an ICT system.
The current paper is part of an attempt to provide more detail to the agenda set in (Beynon-Davies,
2007). It is the first of a series of papers, all of which have the aim of developing a clearer and more
sophisticated systematics for the area which following Kling (Kling and Allen, 1996) we refer to as
organizational informatics. Organizational informatics is interested in the place of information,
information systems and information technology within various forms of human organization
(Beynon-Davies, 2002). Systematics is that branch of enquiry devoted to taxonomy: the process of
describing, defining, identifying, classifying, and naming of things. Gregor (Gregor, 2006) refers to
taxonomic or analytic theory as one of her five types of theory in Information Systems. Taxonomic
theory ‘goes beyond basic description in analyzing or summarizing salient attributes of phenomena
and relationships among phenomena’. As such, taxonomic theory can act as a foundation for further
work seeking to provide causal explanations of phenomena, testable propositions and predictive
statements.
There have been a limited number of attempts at systematics within the discipline of Information
Systems and Informatics more generally (Alter, 2005). However, most such attempts take as their
starting point the development of terminology and classification from the base-line of modern
information and communication technology (ICT). In this and subsequent papers we wish to take a
different direction. Our overall aim is to attempt to identify a number of universal characteristics of
information systems. In other words, we work from the premise that information systems are a natural
consequence of the need for humans to communicate and coordinate their activity. Hence, we would
expect information systems to exist across time, space and human cultures. This leads us further to
suggest that all information systems have a number of characteristics in common (universals) and that
to determine the essence of what an information system is, we need to analyse examples of
information systems used by different human societies at different historical periods.
This has resonance with a familiar problem experienced by social researchers such as social
anthropologists who seek to understand the workings of a society of which they are a part. For
instance, within texts on conducting ethnography (Agar, 1996) researchers are provided with a number
of techniques to help them make the familiar strange. The most extreme forms of such are Garfinkel’s
breaching experiments (Garfinkel, 1967) in which investigators deliberately seek to cause breakdowns
in the ‘methods’ people employ to act appropriately in particular social situations. In this series of
papers we seek to breach the over-socialised current conceptions of information, information systems
and information technology. Such conceptions are particularly evident in certain contemporary
theories of the ‘Information Society’ (Castells, 1996) in which the current historical period is seen to
be substantially different in information terms from those that have gone before.
In the current paper we focus on one critical aspect of an information system: that of information. The
concept of information is clearly foundational to informatics but has been much taken-for-granted.
Where a definition for information is considered in the literature it is largely defined in terms of a
contrast with data and knowledge. For instance, Bocij et al (Bocij et al., 2006) define information as
‘data that have been processed so that they are meaningful’. However, we argue that a more
sophisticated definition for information is possible built around the concept of a sign and a sign-
system. For this purpose we build upon the pioneering work of Ronald Stamper (Stamper, 1985).
To help demonstrate the efficacy of considering information in terms of signs and sign-systems we
describe one of the earliest known examples of the recording of information as well as its use and
manipulation in support of collective human activity. During the Neolithic or late ‘stone age’ period in
the Near East and corresponding with the rise of agriculture, clay tokens began being used to ‘account’
for a surplus of commodities amongst settled human communities. Our description of this Neolithic
information-handling is based largely upon an interpretation of the pioneering work of Denise
Schmandt-Besserat (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1978) (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1992) (Schmandt-Bessarat,
1996).
Our aim as described above has much in common with that of Mason et al (Mason et al., 1997) who
argue for the importance of historical studies within the overall methodology of a discipline such as
Information Systems. However, our aims in interpreting historical material are much broader from
those detailed by Mason et al. From our position, historical cases, and particularly cases from non-
Western societies, are useful for a number of reasons. First, they act as evidence of the universality of
information and information systems across time, space and culture. Second, they demonstrate the
ingenuity of humans in using many different forms of artefact for record-keeping and communication
(Crowley and Heyer, 2003). This leads us to argue for the universal nature of information technology
(or ICT) in human society. Third, such cases provide an intellectual distance from considerations of
modern ICT in definitions of information systems and information. They allow us to begin to
determine something of the essence or universal nature of the core elements of informatics.
Within this planned series of papers we shall bring together ideas from a range of literatures, many of
which are unfamiliar to academics and practitioners within the informatics area, to bear upon our
interpretation of the nature of informatics. We shall consider ideas from anthropology, philosophy,
linguistics, logic, communication theory, cognitive science and of course history. This, of course, is no
accident. It is a necessary consequence of the multi-dimensional nature of information and the trans-
disciplinary nature of informatics.

2. DIFFICULTIES WITH THE CONCEPT OF INFORMATION

Information is commonly seen to be a critical concept for the 21st century because of its importance to
the competitiveness of the private sector globally and even as an important ‘commodity’ in modern
economies (Currie, 2000). Information is even developing as an important element of concern within
the natural sciences, particularly within physics and biology, causing some to refer to information as
the new language of science (Von Baeyer, 2003).
However, the concept of information is generally treated in one of two ways. It is either defined quite
narrowly such as in terms of the transmission of bits, or it is taken-for-granted in the sense that it is
used as an important term but its meaning is very poorly defined and understood. Hence, for instance,
the recent natural science definition for information only considers certain aspects of what we shall
consider as information. Whereas within general management information is seen as important to
management but the term is largely left undefined by writers on this subject, such as Porter (Porter and
Millar, 1985). Therefore, although information is critical ‘stuff’ it is extremely difficult ‘stuff’ to pin
down; it is probably not even ‘stuff’ at all.
The following examples demonstrate some of the difficulties in defining information.
If information is a commodity it is a very strange commodity. As Stamper states, ‘Information is a
paradoxical resource: you can’t eat it, you can’t live in it, you can’t travel about in it, but a lot of
people want it’ (Stamper, 2001). If somebody sells information the commodity does not pass from
seller to buyer like a traditional commodity such as food; the seller still retains the information. The
‘consumption’ of information is therefore radically different from the consumption of physical
commodities such as food, wine and electronic goods.
Much modern communication occurs through use of technology. However, technologically-mediated
communication may actually suffer from loss of information. Take the example of a telephone
conversation in which two people communicate using the telephone network. Because the persons in
the conversation are not co-present significant information is lost in the communication. This is not
solely because the electronic signal travelling down the telephone line conveys only a certain
percentage of the frequencies of normal human speech. It is also because people cannot see each other
and hence a great deal of the information conveyed in bodily gestures is lost to the participants in the
telephone conversation.
A person α looks across at a fellow person β situated at the opposite end of some room. He holds up
one hand and points one finger upwards clenching the remaining fingers in a fist. How is person β to
interpret what person α is trying to tell him? Is it to be interpreted as an insult, as a command to get
him one more of something or is the finger merely being used as a pointer to something perhaps stuck
on the ceiling of the room?
These examples highlight a number of issues which need to be considered in any truly accurate
consideration of what is information. They highlight that information is particularly associated with
human communication, that communication involves signs and that the use of such signs involves
human interpretation. The examples also demonstrate that information is inherently bound closely
with numerous phenomena – language, action, logic and technology; to name but a few. Hence, an
understanding of the place of information in human organization demands a multi-layered or multi-
levelled perspective.

3. SIGNS AND COMMUNICATION

To help us construct a fruitful definition of the concept of information we build upon Stamper’s
(Stamper, 1973) seminal work on Information in Business and Administrative Systems published close
to thirty years ago. In particular, we use the framework of semiotics to help understand the multi-
faceted nature of information. The study of information is necessarily a boundary-spanning activity
since information infiltrates a multitude of areas; all of which are important to organizational
informatics.
Broadly, semiotics or semiology is the study of signs. Signs are seen as the core element of concern
serving to link issues of human intentions, meaning, the structure of language, forms of
communication transmission, data storage and collaborative action.
We would argue that the concept of information revolves around this concept of a sign; being anything
that is significant. In a sense, everything that humans have or do is significant to some degree.
Sometimes not having or doing anything is regarded as significant. The world within which humans
find themselves is therefore resonant with systems of signs.
Steven Pinker (Pinker, 2001) argues that our genetic makeup predisposes humans to be excellent
manipulators of sign-systems. A sign-system is any organised collection of signs. Everyday spoken
language is probably the most readily accepted and complex example of a sign-system. Signs however
exist in most other forms of human activity since signs are critical to the process of human
communication and understanding (Stamper, 1973).
Mention of linguistics and language should not however restrict our conception of a sign to spoken
language. For example, and as indicated in the examples above, in traditional forms of face-to-face
communication, humans communicate through non-verbal as well as verbal sign-systems; colloquially
referred to as ‘body language’ (Morris, 1979). Hence, humans impart a great deal in the way of
information by facial movements and other forms of bodily gesture. Such gestures are also signs. An
example here is the hand gesture in which the first two fingers are used to create a V. If this gesture is
made with the palm facing toward the person(s) communicated with, it might typically signify
‘victory’ or possibly ‘peace’. The gesture made with the knuckles facing towards the person(s)
normally means something entirely different, at least in the UK!
Note the link between the words sign and significant in English; they have the same root. Hence, the
significance of signs cannot be divorced from people. Different people find different things
significant. Many such differences in interpretation are due to differences in the context and culture of
communication.
Charles Morris (Morris, 1964) originally proposed three branches of semiotics – pragmatics, semantics
and syntactics. In (Stamper, 1973) signs and sign-systems are considered in terms of four inter-
dependent levels, layers or branches of semiotics: pragmatics, semantics, syntactics and empirics.
These four layers serve to connect the social world on the one hand with the technical world on the
other (see Figure 1) (Stamper, 2001). Hence, this layered model, which is sometimes referred to as the
semiotic ladder, serves to represent the concept of information as necessarily a socio-technical
phenomenon interposing between three different levels of system of interest to organizational
informatics: activity systems, information systems and ICT systems. It also provides greater clarity
and precision to the common-place distinction made between data and information.

Social

Activity
system
Actions

Pragmatics

Intentions

Semantics
Information

Information
system Meaning

Syntactics

Form

Empirics
Data

Signals & Storage

ICT system

Technical

Figure 1: Levels of semiotics

Signs are used within social systems. The social layer is important because it forms the general context
and culture of communication or the shared assumptions underlying human understanding. For
communication to occur between human beings signs must exist in a context of shared understanding.
Much of this social layer can be considered as the study of culture as it affects communication - the
common expectations underlying human communicative behaviour in a particular context. The reverse
is also true – the way in which signs are used within social systems both reproduce and help to change
such social systems (Walsham and Han, 1991).
We would argue that within informatics we are particularly interested in a sub-type of a social system
which Checkland (Checkland, 1999) refers to as a human activity system. Human activity systems, or
activity systems for short, consist of an interrelated set of activities designed to fulfil some purpose.
Signs are used within activity systems as means of supporting collaborative or coordinated action.
Activity systems are linked to sign-systems through purposive acts of communication. Pragmatics is
concerned with such purpose of communication. Pragmatics links the issue of signs with that of
intention. The focus of pragmatics is on the intentions of human agents underlying communicative
behaviour. In other words, intentions link language to action.
Semantics is concerned with the content or meaning of a message conveyed in a communicative act.
Semantics is the study of the meaning of signs - the association between signs and the ‘world’ and
hence can be considered as the study of the link between symbols and their referents or concepts.
Syntactics is concerned with the formalism used to represent a sign. Syntactics as an area studies the
form of communication in terms of the logic and grammar of sign systems. Hence, syntactics is
devoted to the study of the form rather than the content of signs and sign-systems.
Empirics is the study of the signals used to carry or code the signs of a message; the physical
characteristics of the medium of communication. Empirics is devoted to the study of communication
channels and their characteristics, e.g., sound, light, electronic transmission etc.
Each sign has a material form independent of the observer. Because of this material form each sign
generates costs for its storage, transmission and processing. This is the level of technology for data
storage, transmission and processing. In broad terms we refer to this as Information and
Communications Technology (ICT), but we use the term to refer to a variety of historical and
technological forms; from the clay token to the modern digital computer.
Figure 1 also helps clarify the subtle distinction between data and information. Data cross the empirics
and syntactics levels of signs and are concerned with the form and representation of symbols in
storage and transmission. Information crosses the semantics and pragmatics levels of signs and is
concerned with the meaning of symbols and their use within human action. Hence, information is data
plus sense-making.

4. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

From the discussion above it should be apparent that information is inherently related to the process of
communication and that signs are ‘tools’ of communication. In the classic Shannon and Weaver model
(Shannon, 1949), communication is a process that has the following characteristics (Figure 2). It
involves two or more parties or agents. One or more of the parties in a communication process will be
the sender with intentions to convey. The intentions of the sender will be expressed in a message using
elements from a particular language; the language will have an agreed syntax. The message will be
transmitted by the sender in terms of signals along some communication channel. One or more of the
other parties will be a receiver. Receivers have the ability to interpret signals as a message in the sense
that the meaning of the message becomes apparent.
The key elements of communication are therefore agents (senders and receivers), intentions, messages,
language (with an agreed syntax and semantics), signals and communication channels. It is evident
from this description that there is a clear relationship between the layers of the semiotic ladder
discussed in section 3 and the model of the communication process.
Communication normally exists within the context of some social situation. The social situation sets
the context for the intentions conveyed (pragmatics) and the form in which communication takes
place. In a communicative situation intentions are expressed through messages which comprise
collections of inter-related signs taken from a language which is mutually understood by the agents
involved in the communication. Mutual understanding implies that agents involved understand the
chosen language in terms of its agreed syntax (syntactics) and semantics. The sender codes the
message in the language and sends the message as signals along some communication channel
(empirics). The chosen communication channel will have inherent properties which determine
outcomes such as the speed with which communication can take place and over what distance.
Another way of looking at this is that the four levels of semiotics define elements of a protocol
between agents or actors in communication activity. A protocol is a convention or a set of conventions
which controls the communication process. This means that both sender and receiver must agree or
negotiate a protocol for communication before such communication can occur. In terms of this
communication protocol, pragmatics concerns the intentions conveyed in a message, semantics the
meaning of a message, syntactics the formalism used to represent the message and empirics the signals
used to code and transmit the message.
Syntactics

Message

Formulation of Formulation of Transmission of

Sender
intentions message signal
Communication channel

Intentions Empirics

Intentions

De-coding of Interpretation of
Receipt of signal Receiver
message intentions
Pragmatics Semantics

Message

Figure 2: The process of communication

However, Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication has been seen as deficient as a model of
human dyadic communication because of its linear nature (Burgoon et al., 1994). In contrast, human
communication involves the use of feedback and is consequently transactional in nature. Human
verbal communication, for instance, typically occurs in the form of dialogue, discourse or
‘conversations’; in which the agents within the discourse adjust their messages in response to a history
of previous messages conducted within a particular dialogue (Clark, 1996).
We would argue that the model of communication illustrated in figure 2 also under-emphasises the
role of records and record-keeping within human communication. When human communication
occurs between more than two people and particularly when messages have to be transmitted across
time and space, the persistent record is an essential feature of human communication. Hence, it is to
the artefact of the record and the activity of record-keeping that we devote the greatest attention in our
description of the case that follows.
5. TOKENS IN ANCIENT SUMER

Sumer was one of the earliest known civilizations and was located in southern Mesopotamia –
meaning in Greek ‘The land between the two rivers’. This is an area geographically located between
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq, north-eastern Syria, south-
eastern Turkey, and the Khūzestān Province of south-western Iran. The civilisation lasted from the late
6th millennium B.C. through to the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium B.C.
The cities of Sumer were not the first human cities. However, they were the first urban conurbations to
practice intensive, year-round agriculture. It has been proposed that this ‘Neolithic revolution’ created
a surplus of foodstuffs which could be stored for later consumption (Rudgley, 1999). This allowed the
population to settle in one place instead of migrating with the movement of crops and herds. Intensive
agriculture also allowed for a much greater population density. This, in turn promoted developments
such as forms of hierarchical social organization, an associated division of labour, the invention of
record keeping and the development of writing.
Small clay tokens ranging between 1 and 5 centimetres across, of multiple shapes, and apparently
falling into distinct categories have been found in Near Eastern sites dating between 8,000-3,000 B.C.
(Schmandt-Bessarat, 1978). Schmandt-Besserat hypothesises that such tokens constitute some of the
earliest evidence for record-keeping (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1992). Inherently, she proposes that these
tokens are some of the earliest examples of signs used to record economic information. She suggests
that these tokens were used as symbols to signify two concepts. First, they served as counters and as
such represented quantities or measures of things. Second, they served to stand for some particular
economic good or commodity. Hence, a given token signified both a type of commodity and the
quantity of this commodity.
Schmandt-Besserat (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1996) suggests that the way in which tokens signified goods
and quantities changed over the millennia as a reflection of social change. At first tokens were used to
signify staple agricultural commodities. Later, tokens were used to signify goods manufactured by
craftsmen in cities. In other words, simple tokens were initially used to signify unprocessed
commodities. Over time, complex tokens evolved to signify processed commodities.
When the token system came about in the pre-Sumerian era, circa 8,000 B.C., the first tokens
consisted mainly of abstract shapes formed in clay such as cones, spheres, tetrahedrons, discs and
cylinders. She suggests that these earliest tokens probably recorded the most basic staples such as
quantities of grain and livestock. These so-called plain tokens continued to be used until the end of the
third millennium B.C. (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Plain tokens

In about 4,400 B.C., what Schmandt-Besserat refers to as complex tokens started appearing in the early
cities of Sumer. These tokens consisted of new shapes and the use of incised markings (Figure 4). She
proposes that these complex tokens stood for finished products, such as bread, oil, perfume, wool and
rope, and for items produced in workshops such as metal, bracelets, types of cloths, garments, mats,
pieces of furniture, tools and a variety of stone and pottery vessels. It is noteworthy that these complex
tokens did not replace the earlier plain tokens but were merely added to form a larger system of signs.

Figure 4: Complex tokens

Schmandt-Bessarat (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1996) categorises tokens into sixteen main types based
primarily upon shape (Figure 5). These include cones, spheres, discs, cylinders, tetrahedrons, ovoids,
rectangles, triangles, biconoids, paraboloids, bent coils and ovals/rhomboids. She also identifies a
number of sub-types based upon variations in sizes and markings. For example, cones, spheres, disks
and tetrahedrons are typically represented in two sizes – ‘small’ and ‘large’. Many shapes also have
incised markings consisting of incised lines, notches, punches and pinched appendices. The numbers
assigned to each type in figure 5 represent the number of sub-types in each category identified by
Schmandt-Bessarat.
 49 16 15 46

Cones
Tetrahedrons Biconoids Vessels

33 28 26

11

Ovoids
Spheres Paraboloids Tools

87 32 12 28

Disks
Rectangles Bent coils Animals

32 45

14 18

Triangles Ovals/
Cylinders Rhomboids Misc.

Figure 5: Token types

The evolution of the token system therefore appears to reflect an ever increasing need for accuracy.
For example, in tokens dealing with livestock, early plain cylinders and lentoid disks apparently stood
for heads of livestock. In contrast, in the fourth millennium B.C. complex tokens signified different
species of livestock such as fat-tail sheep, the sex of the animal such as ewe and the age of the sheep
such as lamb. This increase in the number of token types and subtypes, which occurred in large cities
of Sumer about 3,500 B.C., seems therefore to indicate a concern for more precise data and
consequently a more sophisticated form of record-keeping.
The clustering of tokens in groups varying in size from two to about one hundred tokens at various
archaeological sites suggests that a given token typically signified a small quantity of a given
commodity; probably signifying a one-to-one correspondence between a given token and one unit of
the commodity signified. Hence, one jar of oil could be represented by one ovoid, six jars of oil by six
ovoids, and so on. There were apparently only a few tokens that stood for a collection of items. For
example, the lentoid disk probably signified a flock of perhaps ten animals. This meant that the token
sign system did not allow the user to express numbers abstractly. In other words, there was no token
for the concepts of one, two and three (the concept of cardinality) independently of the commodity
counted.
In the early 4th millennium B.C. two mechanisms were also devised for aggregating a group of tokens.
Tokens were either tied together with a piece of string or were enclosed in hollow containers of clay.
We shall focus on the latter form of aggregation, which Schmandt-Besserat refers to as clay envelopes
(Figure 6). Initially, it appears that these clay envelopes were used as a means of imprinting the seals
or ‘signatures’ of the parties engaging in the economic transaction being recorded. Such signatures
were hence probably used to signify ownership, obligation or authority. After a period of time, the
impressions of the tokens contained in the envelope were also impressed in its outer layer. After the
envelope was completed it was baked, making the record persistent or difficult to alter.

Figure 6: Clay envelope

6. ACCOUNTING IN ANCIENT SUMER

Schmandt-Besserat (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1992) hence argues that tokens were a conceptual leap for
human-kind, constituting a new means of encoding data. The essential purpose of tokens was to keep
records of things: an accounting. The shape and markings of the token signified the thing about which
the record was made. Hence, a conical type of token probably stood for a small measure of grain,
while a spherical token stood for a larger measure of grain. In contrast, a cylindrical token probably
stood for a domesticated animal, a tetrahedron token for a unit of labour and an ovoid token for a jar of
oil.
Some have argued that clay tokens are not actually the earliest evidence of human symbolism.
Marshack (Marshack, 2003), for instance, suggests that symbolism such as scratches on antler horn
from the Upper Palaeolithic (35,000 – 10,000 B.C.) period may constitute some of the earliest use of a
tally, related perhaps to calendar events such as the gestation period of a horse or the phases of the
moon.
However, clay tokens appear to be a distinct innovation in a number of ways over the use of tallies.
First, they were entirely man-made artefacts compared to earlier symbolism which involved modifying
natural objects. This meant that distinct token types could be associated with a discrete and
unequivocal meaning that was easily communicated between human actors. A tally in contrast is
meaningless without communication of the context in which it is created. This enabled tokens to
provide a far more flexible form of signification on a number of counts.
Second, the forms of the token-system were relatively easy to create and duplicate. Clay was a
commonly available material which required no special skills or tools to work. In most cases creation
of a token involved merely rolling a small lump of clay between the palms of the hands and pinching it
between the fingertips in various ways.
Third, the tokens as a whole constituted a sign-system. This allowed the classification of things. The
token-system was also open-ended in that the signification of new types of commodities merely
required the addition of a new type of token to the token-system (a new shape or an existing shape
with new or distinctive markings) (Rudgley, 1999).
Fourth, since tokens of different kinds and in different quantities could be stored together, it has been
proposed that they were used as one of the earliest forms of accounting record (Mattesich, 2000). Such
records precluded the need for any individual to memorise accounts. They could be referred to and
understood at any future time by someone who knew what the token represented.
Fifth, it has been proposed that tokens were independent of phonetics. Hence, the Sumerian token
system could be regarded as one of the few examples of semasiographic ‘writing’. Although most
existing systems for writing natural languages are based on a correspondence between the written sign
and some element of the spoken word, a system of signs does not have to replicate speech to
communicate narrative. Therefore, people speaking different languages or dialects found it easy to
adopt this system based on physical artefacts. The evidence of extremely wide distribution of such
tokens throughout the Near East in Neolithic times seems to support this inference.
Sixth, because of the one-to-one correspondence between the token and the commodity represented, it
was relatively easy to apply operations such as addition or subtraction within the system. However,
when the numbers of things to be counted was large, such operations could be time-consuming and
tedious.
Mattesich (Mattesich, 1989) describes the clay envelope with its enclosed tokens as equivalent to
modern notions of a ‘personal account representing that portion of total assets (or equity) invested in a
particular debtor…Consequently the sum-total of the various tokens in a particular envelope…stood
for that part of the creditor’s wealth lent to a debtor’. The token system therefore contains elements for
representing both the physical output of goods from one place and input into another place. It also
appears to have been used to represent social relations of ownership and debt.
Tokens were apparently not re-used once made. They were disposed of once the transaction they
represented was concluded. Evidence from archaeological investigation suggests that the use of tokens
for keeping accounts followed an annual cycle of activity associated with agriculture. Tokens appear
to have been discarded after the harvest and threshing, when the crops would be stored. This suggests
that economic transactions were made in the course of the year to be completed at the time of the
harvest. If this was so, the usual length of keeping accounts in archives was less than a year.

7. ASSOCIATION WITH RELIGION, SOCIAL HIERARCHY AND THE

DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING

Rowland (Rowland, 2003) summarises a number of suppositions from the historiography of

communication, particularly as embodied in the work of Innis (Innis, 1950). The first supposition is
that all communication technologies (or what we would refer to as information and communication
technologies) are extensions of basic, innate human communication capabilities. The second
supposition is that different communication ‘technologies’ impact upon the cognitive structures of
human beings over time, influencing changes in social organization. The work of Schmandt-Besserat
(Schmandt-Bessarat, 1996) supports such reasoning. In her research she proposes an inherent
association between the use of tokens for record-keeping purposes and the rise of social hierarchy,
centralised religious places of worship and the development of writing in ancient Sumeria. ‘Tokens
and clay tablets functioned as an extension of the human brain to collect, manipulate, store and
retrieve data. In turn, processing an increasing volume of data with more complex tokens brought
people to think with greater abstraction’ (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1992).
Rudgley (Rudgley, 1999) argues that despite widespread evidence of tokens in the Near East, there is
no evidence of the use of tokens for long-distance transactions associated with trade. Instead, tokens
seem associated with the rise of social hierarchy during the Neolithic period and local transactions
within defined communities. The argument runs as follows. In order to administer the accumulation of
foodstuffs generated by the innovation of agriculture local elites arose. A member of the elite, such as
the village headman, would be required to collect and then re-distribute the economic surplus of the
community. Tokens were the means by which the flow of goods could be accounted for and the means
by which decisions relating to distribution could be made. As the size of the communities of the Near
East grew in size and as the activities performed by these communities became associated with a
distinct division of labour, there was a need to expand upon the use of plain tokens. New goods
produced in urban centres such as Uruk and Susa had to be accounted for with the invention of new
complex tokens.
Schmandt-Besserat therefore proposes that the two major changes in the token system were not
associated merely with the rise of agriculture and of cities. Instead, the invention of accounting may
be related to the rise of an elite class within these early human societies and the formation of a state
bureaucracy. ‘The two stages of the token system, plain and complex, correspond …to two phases in
the evolution of social structures. Plain tokens with a rank society, whereas complex tokens signal
state formation in Southern Mesopotamia’ (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1992).
This hypothesis, she maintains, is supported by three sets of evidence.
First, the creation of the token system coincided with a new settlement pattern characterized by larger
communities. In other words, the first token assemblage coincides with the advent of a hierarchical or
rank society characterized by a new type of leadership overseeing community resources.
The fact that the first stage of the token system (plain tokens) coincided with agriculture and the
second (complex tokens) with urban formation, seems of great significance. It clearly indicates that the
evolution of accounting coincided with major socio-economic development. Schmandt-Bessarat states
that ‘the origin of accounting must be credited to ranked societies and the state…it was not the mere
fact of hoarding grain, tending flocks, or producing manufactured goods that brought about and
developed accounting…it was the development of social structures’ (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1992).
The appearance of the first token assemblages in the period 8,000-7,500 B.C. suggests that the system
of counting and record-keeping of goods became necessary when survival depended on domestication
of grains and accumulation of the products of harvests. In other words, the token system fulfilled new
needs for accounting brought about by the invention of agriculture and the development of fixed
communities.
The multiplication of token types and subtypes in the fourth millennium B.C. also seems to correspond
with the rise of the city and the new forms of human activity reliant on a clear division of labour. This
is because the creation of workshops, and the more diversified urban economy that followed, required
more sophisticated accounting techniques.
Second, the tokens recovered in the tombs of prestigious individuals suggest that, from the Neolithic
to the Bronze Age (6,000-3,500 B.C.), the use of counters served as an instrument of power for an
elite controlling goods.
In rare, but significant instances, tokens have been recovered in a funerary setting. These findings
suggest that the people who handled tokens and practiced accounting were of high status within the
society of the time. Among the thousands of graves dating from 8,000 to 3,000 B.C. excavated in the
Near East, only a dozen are known to have yielded tokens. In these instances the counters were
restricted to the tombs of individuals of high status, some richly furnished. The rarity of funerary
tokens, their association with luxurious burial deposits, with artefacts symbolizing power and with
special architecture, seems to indicate that the counters did not belong to the masses, but were the
privilege of an elite (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1996).
Third, in all the major ancient Near Eastern cities such as Uruk and Susa complex tokens occur in
archaeological levels in which seals featuring the ruler have been discovered. They also occur in
public buildings built according to an identical plan and decorated with typical mosaics and containing
grain measures. In other words, the administrative centres that yield complex tokens were the seats of
a large bureaucracy, housed in similar buildings, using the same administrative devices (complex
tokens, seals and grain measures) and, most importantly, were headed by the same powerful ruler. The
complex tokens can be considered, therefore, as being an essential element of the bureaucracy used by
the Sumerian king to govern and control the distribution of commodities in the first city-states.
The appearance of tokens in the earliest rank societies, their inclusion in rich burials, and the place of
the complex tokens in the state bureaucracy, suggest that, from the beginning, accounting was the
privilege of an elite and that the more the system became efficient and precise, the more power it
wielded for this elite.
It has thus been proposed that the rise of the complex token system is likely to have been associated
with the emergence of a distinct temple bureaucracy. When tokens were recovered within buildings,
the structures suggest that, from early on, accounting with tokens belonged to places of religious
significance. For example, in the sixth millennium B.C. site of Hajji Firuz, Iran, a number of cones
were located in a house that was apparently serving a special non-domestic function. It showed no
trace of activities of daily life such as cooking or flint chipping and the building differed substantially
from the usual domestic architecture.
Schmandt-Besserat paraphrases the eminent anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss as stating that writing
was invented for the exploitation of man by man. In other words, tokens were used within early
accounting systems in Mesopotamia as a means of power. Tokens were used primarily as a means to
control the amount of goods delivered to the temple and their re-distribution. The development of the
token system therefore reflects the development of authority. They were a bureaucratic tool used to
control the production of goods and their pooling for state benefit. This has much synergy with
Beniger’s conception of the place of information and information technologies in society as tools for
control. He states that, ‘…a society’s ability to maintain control – at all levels from inter-personal to
international relations – will be directly proportional to the development of its information
technologies’ (Beniger, 1986).
Hobart and Schiffman (Hobart and Schiffman, 1998) offer a useful historical perspective on the long-
term nature of information and information ‘technology’. Although both writing and speech constitute
communication and therefore impart information, they limit their definition of the first information age
to the invention of writing. In their eyes, writing is seen as the first information technology. ‘Both
writing and speech constitute communication, but of the two only writing extracts the sounds of
speech from their oral flow by giving them visual representation’.
However, following Schmandt-Besserat we would argue that writing is actually not the first
information technology. Marcia and Robert Ascher (Ascher and Ascher, 1997), for instance,
emphasise that writing is actually not a necessary condition for civilisation. Instead, some medium for
record-keeping is required. In the pre-literate societies of Ancient Sumeria and the Andean peoples of
the Inca (Beynon-Davies, 2007), information was recorded through physical artefacts consisting of
clay tokens and knotted strings. This suggests a much broader definition for information technology.
Technology is any organised collection of artefacts created by humans to extend their human
capabilities or to compensate for their limitations. Information technology is any such collection of
artefacts used to extend human information processing and communication capabilities or compensate
for inherent cognitive and social limitations in this area.
Having said this, the development of writing was undoubtedly a significant leap forward in the
sophistication of information technology. It has been proposed that the impressions made on the
outside of clay envelopes were the first step in the development of such writing (Schmandt-Bessarat,
1996). The two-dimensional impressions made on the outside of clay envelopes may have begun as a
way of making doubly sure that an accounting of things was accurate. Mattesich (Mattesich, 1989)
interprets this practice as the earliest example of double-entry accounting. Also, checks could be made
of the contents of an envelope without breaking the envelope itself.
At a certain stage the Sumerian ‘accountants’ realised that the notation used on the outside of the
envelope made both the envelope itself and the tokens contained inside redundant (Rudgley, 1999).
Hence, during the period 3,500-3,100 B.C. the clay envelope gave way to the clay tablet. Accounting
now took place merely by impressing symbols for the things recorded directly onto a tablet. With the
rise of such pictography around 3,100 B.C. a further recognition occurred that quantities which
previously had been expressed by direct or concrete correspondence between the sign and the
commodity could be abstracted and represented by explicit symbols, used to represent a cardinal
number such as ‘three’.
Hence, Harris (Harris, 1986) portrays the decisive step from the use of tokens to the use of written
script as the movement from a ‘token-iterative’ sign-system to an ‘emblem-slotting’ sign system. As
discussed above, in a token-iterative sign-system the concept of <three sheep> would be represented
as <sheep, sheep, sheep>. In an emblem-slotting sign-system the same concept would be represented
by two signs or emblems: one representing <sheep>, the other the cardinal number <three>.

8. DISCUSSION

Information is a central concept for organizational and personal life in the twenty-first century. For
this reason many have referred to the emergence of an information society globally (Castells, 1996).
However, as the Sumerian case demonstrates, information is not the prerogative of the modern
Western world. It is possible even to argue that, information is a characteristic of all human cultures
and time-periods, ever since the dawn of human culture itself over 50,000 years ago (Klein, 2002).
Nevertheless, the concept of information is difficult to define precisely because it is multi-faceted. For
this reason we have chosen to consider information in terms of the concept of a sign. Signs mediate
between the physical and the social world: they are socio-technical phenomena. Signs are essential
component elements of human communication.
Communication is clearly essential for coordination of human activity. In small groups, spatially
located close together and for tasks that are temporally limited, face-to-face human communication is
sufficient for such coordination. When the size of the group increases, when the agents of the
communication are spatially distant and/or when there is some temporal dis-location in the message
wishing to be conveyed then some information system is essential.
Human communication is therefore a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an information
system. The essence of an information system is embodied in the concept of the ‘record’ and the
activity of record-keeping. The record acts as an external and persistent memory of something. The
record signifies something intended by the maker of the record that can be interpreted by the reader of
the record at some other time and possible place. Using such artefacts, the dialogue or discourse of
human agents can occur across time and possibly space.
We have used the discipline of semiotics and its concept of a sign as a means of providing greater
clarity to the concept of information. Semiotics is devoted to the study of signs and consists of four
sub-areas. The levels of pragmatics, semantics, syntactics and empirics represent various facets of the
concept of a sign that span between the social and the technical.
The focus of pragmatics is on the intentions of human agents underlying communicative behaviour. In
other words, intentions link language to action. The case described in this paper indicates that record-
keeping as a formal language appears to pre-date the invention of written language. There is evidence
of this in other cultures such as the Inca where a form of record-keeping based upon knotted strings
emerged in a society without a ‘written’ language (Urton and Brezine, 2005).
Human memory is sufficient to support cooperative and simple activities between individuals in small
communities. As communities grow, activities, particularly those reliant on economic exchange, need
to take place between strangers and generally are more complex in nature, reliant typically on some
division of labour. Records compensate for the limitations of individual human memory and extend it
into social memory. Records of economic transactions institutionalise memory of past economic
exchanges and the obligations placed upon individuals engaged in such exchange. It is also proposed
that accurate record-keeping is critical in establishing and sustaining trust between strangers engaging
in economic exchange. Records account not only for the types and quantities of commodities
exchanged, they are also important for supporting social relationships such as ownership and debt.
Semantics is concerned with the meaning of a message conveyed in a communicative act. Semantics
considers the content of communication and is the study of the meaning of signs. Semantics can be
considered as the study of the link between symbols and their referents or concepts. In contrast,
syntactics is concerned with the formalism used to represent a message. Syntactics studies the form of
communication in terms of the logic and grammar of sign systems. In other words, syntactics is
devoted to the study of the form rather than the content of signs.
John Dewey (Dewey, 1916) suggested that a word is three things: a fence, a label and a vehicle. The
same could be said more generally of the concept of sign. A sign is a ‘fence’ in the sense that it sets a
conceptual boundary around some thing and is used to distinguish one thing from another. A sign is a
‘label’ in that it acts as a convenient reference standing for something else. Finally, a sign is a
‘vehicle’ in the sense that used with other signs as a ‘language’ it is a means for describing and
debating with the world as well as acting upon it. Pragmatics is particularly interested in the sign as a
vehicle – as a means for supporting action. Syntactics is particularly interested in the sign as a fence -
how conceptual boundaries are created with symbols. Semantics is particularly interested in the idea of
the sign as label and as such is the study of what symbols refer to.
A simple model which encapsulates some of the essence of semantics and syntactics is one in which a
sign is broken down into three component parts which are frequently referred to collectively as the
meaning triangle (Figure 7) (Ogden and Richards, 1923). The designation of a sign refers to the
symbol (or collection of symbols) by which some concept is known. The extension of a sign refers to
the range of phenomena that the concept in some way covers. The intension of a sign is the collection
of properties that in some ways characterise the phenomena in the extension, and is the idea or concept
of significance.
In this conception, symbols are equivalent to data. A datum, a single item of data, is a symbol or a set
of symbols used to represent something. Information particularly occurs in the ‘stands-for’ or
intentional (Searle, 1970) relations between the symbol (designation) and its concept (intension) and
the symbol and its referent (extension).
Sign

Data Information

Intension

Measure of
oil

Designation Extension

Figure 7: The Meaning Triangle

The Sumerian clay token is a classic example of a sign. The token itself represents the designation of
the sign – the symbol. A token signifies two concepts through its existence, shape and markings
(intension): the quantity of some commodity and the type of commodity. Hence, there was meant to be
a one-to-one correspondence between the designation and extension within the sign-system. For
example, one token of a given type represented one item of a commodity such as a measure of grain or
oil.
The collection of both plain and complex tokens constituted as a whole this sign-system. The physical
makeup of the token themselves and the ways in which the features of each token allowed the user to
distinguish between one type of token and another constituted its syntax. Given the demise of the
human community that used this particular sign-system, the semantics of tokens is subject to much
interpretation. However, Schmandt-Besserat believes that there is sufficient evidence for a number of
associations such as those illustrated in figure 8 for particular types of plain and complex token.
Empirics is the study of the signals used to carry a message; the physical characteristics of the
medium of communication. Empirics traditionally considers problems solely of data communication,
particularly the study of communication channels and their characteristics. However, empirics should
also logically concern the issue of data representation and storage based around the concept of a
record.
The term universe of discourse (UoD), domain of discourse or ontology (Kishore et al., 2004) is
sometimes used to describe the context within which a group of signs is used continually by a social
group or groups. For work in informatics, at the level of empirics, it is important to develop a detailed
understanding of the structure of these signs as a schema: an attempt to develop an abstract description
of some UoD, usually in terms of a formal language. To build a schema we must have a data model,
which establishes a set of principles for representing and organising the storage of data. In general
terms, the syntax of any data model can be described in terms of a hierarchy of data items, data
elements and data structures (Tsitchizris and Lochovsky, 1982). A data item is the lowest-level of data
organization. A data element is a logical collection of data items and a data structure is a logical
collection of data elements.
The most common data model that has been employed for data storage within organizations has been
referred to as a file-based data model. This data model uses the inter-related constructs of fields,
records and files. Fields are data items, records are data elements and files are the data structures
within this data model. Although this data model assumed some significance with the rise of the
modern office and bureaucracy (Weber, 1946), we would argue that the file-based, sometimes referred
to as the records-based, data model has existed for many thousands of years in numerous distinct
human civilisations. In a sense, records by their very nature involve the use of signs to act as a
persistent signification of something. By persistence we mean that a communication is encoded in
some reified form which allows it to be transported through time and space. Records are typically
collected together in the data structure of a file. Collecting records together in a particular file
normally implies some association (semantic intent) between these data elements.
 Designation Intension Extension

Measure of
oil

Item of cloth
or garment

Item of
metal

A sheep

Figure 8: Designation, Intension and Extension of Sumerian tokens

One can clearly argue that ‘accountants’ in Ancient Sumeria used an inherently file-based data model
based around the creation and manipulation of physical tokens. Clay tokens of various types
constituted the data items in this data model. The analysis conducted by Schmandt-Bessarat indicates
that the variety (Beer, 1972) in this sign-system is 492 (the sum of the number of sub-types in Figure
5). Hence, there are roughly 500 different things that could be represented as data items within this
data model.
Sometimes, a collection of such data items were collected together and enclosed in a clay envelope.
This envelope was fixed in baking as a data element or record of an economic transaction. It could
also be argued that the co-location of tokens and clay envelopes within some location such as a temple
precinct equated to the creation of a data structure or file which served perhaps to record information
such as the surplus of a particular harvest stored for later use.
Schmandt-Bessarat cogently summarises her position in the following quote: ‘The conceptual leap that
revolutionised communication was the creation of a set of symbols with specific shapes and endowing
each shape with a discrete meaning. The tokens were modelled in striking, geometric shapes that were
easy to recognise. The forms were simple and easy to duplicate. The counters were systematically
repeated, always carrying the same meaning. The dozens of token shapes constituted a code of dozens
of interrelated concept symbols concerning goods and commodities. Later, with the development of a
repertory of markings, the code grew to hundreds of concept symbols. The system made it possible to
deal concurrently with multiple kinds of data, thus allowing the processing and communication of a
volume and complexity of information never reached previously’ (Schmandt-Bessarat, 1992)’.
If we replace Schmandt-Bessarat’s use of the term concept symbol with sign in this quote we would
argue that the four levels of sign described above, relate directly to three levels of system important to
informatics. Human activity systems are social systems and hence typically interact with the semiotic
level of pragmatics. Signs are used within such activity systems to support collaborative and
coordinated action. In one direction they are used to encode intentions. In the other direction they are
used as key inputs into decisions made about action. An information system is a communication
system used to support a given activity system and as such is mainly located against the semantic and
syntactic levels of signs. The output of an information system is therefore information; information
systems use agreed systems of signs to represent meaning. An ICT system is a designed system of
artefacts used to collect, store, process and disseminate data. Since the output of an ICT system is data,
such systems are located mainly at the technical and empirics level of signs. ICT is concerned with the
physical representation of signs for storage, transmission and manipulation.
Within the Sumer case, the activity system of concern involved the storage and distribution of wealth
produced by a settled community. Tokens were used within an information system to represent the
accumulation of agricultural and manufactured products by a community and to account for this
collective wealth for the purposes of economic re-distribution. The tokens themselves, along with their
aggregation in clay envelopes, represented the information technology of the day. Such tokens were
used for data representation, storage and manipulation.

9. CONCLUSION

This paper has described part of a programme of work with the overall aim of understanding and
describing some of the fundamental nature of informatics. It is the first in a planned series designed to
examine this nature through utilisation of a set of literatures, many of which are unfamiliar to
academics and practitioners in Information Management, Information Systems and Information
Technology. We particularly intend to use a consideration of historical cases to help ‘make strange’
and challenge existing conceptions of foundation terms within Informatics.
The important premise underlying this exercise is that component elements of informatics have a
universal quality. In other words, as a working hypothesis, we propose that information, information
systems and even information technology are likely to have a presence in numerous distinct human
cultures in different time-periods and across global geography. This leads us to suggest that
Informatics, defined in these very broad terms, might therefore be a phenomenon inherently associated
with the cognitive and social makeup of Homo sapiens. We further propose that this conception of
informatics provides a better intension for the term than a mere re-branding of Computer Science. We
believe that this conception of Informatics demands special disciplinary attention and suggest that it
may act as a firmer foundation for an area of interest which, in some of its guises, is traditionally
fragmented and has been subject to continual cycles of disciplinary crisis (Banville and Landry, 1989)
(Benbasat and Zmud, 2003).
Three component elements of Informatics are considered in this series of papers as universal human
phenomena. The key issue examined in the current paper has been to identify the essence of what
information is. Using the evidence of Sumerian clay tokens we have made the case for considering
information as embodied in the concept of the sign. Signs are represented in various ways as
information technology. They are the source of communication within information systems and as
such enable the coordination of activity systems. The next paper in the series will build upon this
discussion and examine the related concept of an information system, using a similar method of
analysis and exposition. This will be followed by a more detailed consideration of the universals of
information technology, as alluded to in the current paper.

10. REFERENCES

Agar, M. (1996). The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. New York,
Academic Press.
Alter, S. (2005). Architecture of Sysperanto: a model-based Ontology of the IS field. Communications
of the Association for Information Systems 15: 1-40.
Ascher, M. and R. Ascher (1997). Mathematics of the Incas: Code of the quipu. New York, Dover
Publications.
Banville, C. and M. Landry (1989). Can the Field of MIS be Disciplined? Communications of the
ACM 32(1): 48-60.
Beer, S. (1972). Brain of the Firm: the managerial cybernetics of organisation. London, Allen Lane.
Benbasat, I. and R. Zmud (2003). The Identity Crisis within the IS Discipline: defining and
communicating the discipline's core properties. MIS Quarterly 27(2): 183-194.
Beniger, J. R. (1986). The Control Revolution: technological and economic origins of the information
society. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press.
Beynon-Davies, P. (2002). Information Systems: an introduction to informatics in organisations.
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Palgrave.
Beynon-Davies, P. (2007). Informatics and the Inca. International Journal of Information Management
27(5): 306-318.
Bocij, P., D. Chaffey, A. Greasley and S. Hickie (2006). Business Information Systems. Harlow,
Essex, Pearson Education.
Burgoon, M., F. G. Hunsaker and E. J. Dawson (1994). Human Communication. Thousand Oaks,
California, Sage.
Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Mass., Blackwell.
Checkland, P. (1999). Soft Systems Methodology: a thirty year retrospective. Chichester, John Wiley.
Clark, H. (1996). Using Language. New York, Cambridge University Press.
Crowley, D. and P. Heyer, Eds. (2003). Communication in History: technology, culture, society.
Boston, Pearson Education.
Currie, W. (2000). The Global Information Society. Chichester, John Wiley.
Dewey, J. (1916). Essays in Experimental Logic. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall.
Gregor, S. (2006). The Nature of Theory in Information Systems. Management Information Systems
Quarterly 30(3): 611-642.
Harris, R. (1986). The Origin of Writing. London, Duckworth.
Hobart, M. E. and Z. S. Schiffman (1998). Information Ages:literacy, numeracy and the computer
revolution. London, John Hopkins University Press.
Innis, H. (1950). Empire and Communication. Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
Kishore, J., R. Sharman and R. Ramesh (2004). Computational Ontologies and Information Systems:
1. Foundations. Communications of the Association for Information Systems 14: 158-183.
Klein, R. G. (2002). The Dawn of Human Culture. New York, John Wiley.
Kling, R. and J. P. Allen (1996). Can Computer Science Solve Organisational Problems? The Case for
Organisational Informatics. Computerisation and Controversy: value conflicts and social
choices. R. Kling. San Diego, Academic Press.
Marshack, A. (2003). The Art and Symbols of Ice Age Man. Communication in History: technology,
culture and society. Boston, Pearsn Education.
 Mason, R. O., J. L. Mckenney and D. G. Copeland (1997). An Historical Method for MIS Research:
steps and assumptions. MIS Quarterly 21(3): 307-319.
Mattesich, R. (1989). Accounting and the Input-Output Principle in the Prehistoric and Ancient World.
ABACUS 25(2): 74-84.
Mattesich, R. (2000). The Beginnings of Accounting and Accounting Thought, Routledge.
Morris, C. (1964). Signification and Significance. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
Morris, D. (1979). Manwatching: a field guide to human behaviour. London, Harry N. Abrahams.
Ogden, C. K. and I. A. Richards (1923). The Meaning of Meaning. London, Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Pinker, S. (2001). The Language Gene. Harmondsworth, Middx, Penguin.
Porter, M. E. and V. E. Millar (1985). How Information Gives you Competitive Advantage. Harvard
Business Review 63(4): 149-160.
Rowland, W. D. (2003). Foreword. Communication in History: technology, culture, society. D.
Crowley and P. Heyer. Boston, Pearson Education.
Rudgley, R. (1999). The Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age. New York, Simon and Schuster.
Schmandt-Bessarat, D. (1978). The Earliest Precursor of Writing. Scientific American 238(6).
Schmandt-Bessarat, D. (1992). Before Writing. Austin, Texas, The University of Texas Press.
Schmandt-Bessarat, D. (1996). How Writing Came About. Austin, Texas, The University of Texas
Press.
Searle, B. J. R. (1970). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
Shannon, C. E. (1949). The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana, University of Illinois
Press.
Stamper, R. K. (1973). Information in Business and Administrative Systems. London, Batsford.
Stamper, R. K. (1985). Information: Mystical Fluid or a Subject for Scientific Enquiry? The Computer
Journal 28(3).
Stamper, R. K. (2001). Organisational Semiotics: Informatics without the computer? Information,
Organisation and Technology: studies in organisational semiotics. L. Kecheng, R. J. Clarke, P.
Bogh_Anderson and R. K. Stamper. Dordecht, Netherlands, Kluwer.
Tsitchizris, D. C. and F. H. Lochovsky (1982). Data Models. Englewood-Cliffs, Prentice-Hall.
Urton, G. and C. J. Brezine (2005). Khipu Accounting in Ancient Peru. Science: 1065-1068.
Von Baeyer, H. C. (2003). Information : The new language of science, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Walsham, G. and C.-K. Han (1991). Structuration Theory and Information Systems Research. Journal
of Applied Systems Analysis 17.
Weber, M. (1946). Essays in Sociology. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

View publication stats