Proto-Document and Document: Revisiting the History and Origin
| 02 July 2024
Posted in
Archival funds and collections
Dvoenosova G.A.,
Kazan, Russian Federation
Proto-Document and Document: Revisiting the History and Origin
Abstract
The article strives to research the origin of document. Until recently it has been addressed on basis of informational approach, which argues that advent of document was a result of social information growth exceeding human memory resources. The author uses socio-political analysis based on interdisciplinary approach to study document and the problem of its origin. Some recently uncovered data from anthropologists and Sumerian specialists point to the origin of document being not informational. It is associated with the nature of social self-organization. Document was a product of the development of social institutes of family and private property and of transition to patrilineal succession. Kinship signs, marks of distinction, authority (totem) and property (stamp, brand, tamga) are regarded as proto-documents regulating family and economic relationships. Document in its essential form appeared with the advent of surplus products of agriculture and cattle-breeding and necessity of its calculation, exchange and sale (contract), regulation of inheritance (bequest, contract) and power (legislation). Document originated in necessity to confirm and prove the commitment of certain actions. Studying the Sumer data the author points out that document recording daily activities from the very beginning was a social instrument and regulator even while knowledge transfer remained oral. And when narrative recording began book and document differed by social functions, manufacturing techniques and storage practices. Consequently, from its very origin document and book represent different phenomena dealing with different social issues.
Keywords
Subject script, kinship signs, signs of property, proto-document, origin of document, social role of document.
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About the authors
Dvoenosova Galina Alexandrovna, PhD in History, assistant professor at the Kazan State Power Engineering University, head the Document Science department, +7(917)2935336, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it