> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: Graeber & Wengrow > Reference:: Graeber, D. and Wengrow, D. (2021) _The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity_. Signal. > Date:: 2021 > Tags:: #weaving > WeftLinks:: [[Scientific value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - There is craft in laboratory and other scientific work]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > Geometry and applied calculus were developed through weaving or beadwork, practiced primarily by women. >As pointed out, for example, by Mary Harris (1997); recall here also that the centralized knowledge systems of Chavín, the Classic Maya and other pre-Columbian polities may well have rested on a continent-wide system of mathematics, originally calculated with the aid of strings and cords, and hence grounded ultimately in fabric technologies (Clark 2004); and that the invention of cuneiform mathematics in cities was preceded by some thousands of years of sophisticated weaving technologies in villages, echoes of which are preserved in the forms and decoration of prehistoric ceramic traditions throughout Mesopotamia (Wengrow 2001). Harris, Mary. 1997. *Common Threads: Women, Mathematics, and Work*. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. Clarke, —. 2004. ‘Surrounding the sacred: geometry and design of early mound groups as meaning and function.’ In Jon L. Gibson and Philip J. Carr (eds), _Signs of Power: The Rise of Complexity in the Southeast._ Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, pp. 162–213. Wengrow —. 2001. ‘The evolution of simplicity: aesthetic labour and social change in the Neolithic Near East.’ _World Archaeology_ 33 (2): 168–88.