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1:25:08to be prime numbers, >> which is very cool. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Like 20,000 years ago, they're putting in these notches that are prime numbers. It could be like a counting tool. This is very advanced, >> right? >> For 20 Anyway, >> 20,000 years ago, right? There's some criticism that maybe it's just a tally stick or like the notches are for better grip, but the prime numbers are kind of >> specific >> specific, right? So, I like that one. [laughter] >> Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and say I like that one. Then there's there's an understanding about Neanderl yarn. This came out and what what they were doing was microscopic analysis of yarn that
1:25:48they found in Neanderl cave and it showed evidence of an intertwined three ply cord. >> Okay. >> And if it's intertwined like that, you know, where it's like you're doing braids, >> then there's some understanding of mathematics, right? You got to do three and then one under and then two and then one under, so on and so forth. >> Okay. >> So maybe the Neanderls had basic mathematical concepts, right? Then we get into about 8,000 BC. There's something called the token system which is again in Mesopotamia these early farmers used geometric clay tokens like triangles cones spheres for onetoone accounting and there's evidence that three cones would mean three measures of barley and so on and so forth right and
1:26:29amidst this is where we get the halafian gap which is where this paper sort of fits in okay it's a paper that was out very recently and it's showing that the halafian period which is about 6,000 to 5,000 BC. It predates the Sumerian writing >> and perhaps >> the pottery is evidence that it's not just aesthetics that they were going for, but they were going for some kind of mathematical codification >> for their agricultural society. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> And this is we're getting into something called cognitive archaeology, which is reconstructing ancient thought. It's always very hard to do. >> Yes. um ethnommathematics which is inferring math from indirect indications
1:27:11like we did with that bone from the Congo. So it's very hard to do. All right. So this is not an exact science but I still think it's incredibly cool because I love thinking about how we got here. >> How do we get out of the cradle of civilization? >> Yeah. Yeah. And how do we form this kind of amazing society? Right. To think about something that happened 8,000 years ago is is I think very very cool. Yes. >> So >> let's get into the paper. They did a survey of pottery from 29 different agricultural sites across northern Mesopotamia. >> Archaeological sites. >> Yes. Yes. What did I say? >> Uh agricultural. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Archaeological sites. I guess they were agricultural, but you're right. The this is archaeological sites where they analyze tens of thousands of
1:27:54painted shards of pottery. Okay. So, they have one thing that's very important is they have a very large statistical sample. This is quite rare. I was going to say that's I was literally going to say I can't imagine there's a lot of archaeological sites where we have that volume Yes. >> of stuff. >> Yes. So this is a lot of data >> from tens of thousands of shards from all over this geography. And what we find what they find is vegetital motifs. So motifs of plants that are a shared cultural language. >> The entire Halafian territory had this language. If you look at pottery from one end all the way to the other, >> you've got plants. So that means this isn't like a one-off thing, right? >> Okay. This is a kind of cultural
1:28:35language that goes across the entire civilization, right? And there's an average frequency of these motifs which is pretty significant. About 4 to 6% of all of the pottery has this. And given the amount of data that we have, we can actually be very confident that this is there. Right?