Communication · c. 3,350 BCE

Proto-cuneiform

Temple accountants in Uruk draw numbers and pictographs on clay tablets.

Around 3350 to 3000 BCE, scribes at Uruk recorded rations, land and livestock with about 1,000 signs impressed or incised in clay. It recorded quantities and nouns but not full sentences, a bridge from tokens to true writing.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Cylinder seal 3500 BCE
Clay accounting tokens 8000 BCE

What it led to 1

Writing (cuneiform) 3200 BCE

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Share of people living in cities Latest: 57.5 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data

World GDP over a million years Latest: 41k billion 1990 international $ (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, Estimating World GDP, One Million B.C. - Present; Wikipedia: Gross world product (DeLong table, cross-check)