Writing was a seminal technology, perhaps involved in our evolution as sentient beings, certainly in our societies'. Its first known use is, not coincidentally, at the end of prehistory. For writing made knowing history possible, among many, many other things.

Writing has very likely affected and is very likely affecting natural selection among human beings. The complexity of this interaction makes it generally very difficult to unpack, but the fact remains that it is most likely influencing sexual selection and many other technologies that rely on it such as medicine and modern energy production are directly involved with human life spans and making some formerly marginal genotypes viable.

Writing is a technology (Ingold, 2000, p401) on which many others are based. Early examples would include map-making and algebra. More lately the scientific method and computer programming make heavy, integral use of it. It is so fundamental that sometimes we forget about it. But the fact that so much else of what we have achieved is built upon it doesn't make it any less a technology.

And being an almost invisible and not very well understood foundation makes writing no less pivotal. It is responsible for myriad social changes. It has been argued that the development of cities was enhanced by writing (Bairoch, 1988). The consequences to hunter gatherers are then quite clear. There may have also been many cases of spoken language outsiders facing similarly severe consequences (King James Bible, n.d.) but the documentation thereof required writing – by definition.

The many different families of writing (Coulmas, 1989) tend to obscure the psychological equivalences of signification. While there does not yet appear to be a definitive argument for strong or weak causation in spoken language it does seem certain that causation exists. Furthermore, that there is psycho-linguistic causation in and from writing is rather apparent (Lau, 2004) even if many are still in confusion (Walshe, 1963) as to its nature. What does seem clear is that writing allowed us to externalize some of our cognitive processes (Clark, 2001, p143) and render them semi-permanent and in so doing magnify our effect on our world exponentially.

Bairoch, P. Translated by Braider, C (1988) Cities and Economic Development: from the dawon of history to the present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Clark, A (2001) Mindware. New York: Oxford University Press

Coulmas, F. (1989) The Writing Systems of the World. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers

Ingold, T. (2000) The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge

King James Bible (n.d.) Judges 12:6 [Online]. Available from: http://bibleresources.bible.com/keywordsearchresults.php?keyword=shibboleth

Lau, G.K. (2004) 'Chinese hostages to their writing system: A case for simplification and reform' China Daily [Online]. Available from: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-02/07/content_304083.htm (Accessed 18 April, 2010)

Walshe (1963) 'Wet Pint' German Life and Letters Vol: 16 Issue: 3-4 ISSN: 0016-8777 Date: 04/1963 Pages: 290 - 293 [Online]. Available from: http://liv.summon.serialssolutions.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/search?s.q=linguistic+causation (Accessed 18 April, 2010)