Oral Technologies: A Cornerstone of Ancient Civilizations?

Abstract

Studies of oral traditions have demonstrated that complex and lengthy accounts of the past have been composed in oral form-without benefit of a written language. Most students of orality have concluded that an oral technology is not capable of retaining precise and accurate information. However, that conclusion may be a derivative of the fact that most studies of orality have focused on epics. Archaeological and historical data from ancient civilizations and ethnographic reports of knowledge retained in nonliterate societies are here examined. These data suggest that precise and accurate calendric, agricultural, and navigational information was retained in oral form. Oral technologies were probably one of the cornerstones of ancient nonliterate civilizations.