But writing is real power. If they have writing, or achieve it soon, it means their rate of cultural change has become exponential, or soon will. It will mean they can store information without distortion, transferring it more easily from one generation to the next, accessing it when they need it, building on it. It is a permanent cultural storage system. Writing is what has allowed humans to get from scattered tribes to global dominance in five thousand years: that’s a flash of lightning in deep time.
