### id261665701 writing took over 45k years after language to develop > Anatomically modern humans are estimated at 200,000 years ago, spoken language is estimated at 50,000 years ago, and writing is estimated at around 3200 BC. > > Getting a community to agree on the meanings of arbitrary sounds seems *really* hard when no one knows what language is. Getting that same group to agree on how those sounds map to written glyphs seems *extra* hard. It’s a horrible coordination problem. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fqpd1hbkkjbenbqkevy647ne) - [[Review How To Invent Everything by Alex Irpan#id261665701 writing took over 45k years after language to develop|View in Vault]] - [n] This is really relevant for the lore of [[The Archivist]]. - [n] #xref with [[Anthropocene Era Timeline]]