> [!quote] [Writing Is Not Present in All 'Complex' Societies, but It Can Signal Inequality](https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2022/02/writing-is-not-present-in-all-complex.html) via [[Archaeology News Network]] on 2022-02-10, highlighted 2022-06-09. [ReadwiseID: 15899055 > id331161976](https://read.readwise.io/read/01g55688a3w5vemmmtznrvgdqg) > in a new study in the *[Journal of Social Computing](http://dx.doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2021.0015)*, researchers have found that societies don't need written languages to be large or have complex governments. In a systematic, comparative survey of precolonial Mesoamerican societies, the study's authors found that some large population centers had written systems of communication, but others did not. At the same time, the centers that had more elaborate computational and writing systems tended to be more autocratic (top-down ruler-dominated governance) than the ones without.