Thanks, Dave L ... but all I did was to use a search-engine! I haven't done the scholarly thing, and read McDonald's book ...

However, I do have some notes on Refrew, C., & Bahn, P. (1991), "Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice", Thames & Hudson: 352; where they discuss weights and measures in Mohenjo Daro, including some cubes of coloured stone, which were apparently found to embody multiples of a constant unit of mass 0.836g/0.03ozs. by integers such as as 1/4/8/64/320/1600. They went on to say:


"One can argue that this simple discovery indicates:

1. that the society in question had developed a concept equivalent to our own notion of weight or mass

2. that the use of this concept involved the operation of units, and hence the concept of modular measure

3. that there was a system of numeration, involving hierarchical numerical categories (e.g. tens and units) in this case apparently based on the fixed ratio of 16:1.

4. that the weight system was used for practical purposes (as the finding of scale plans indicates), constituting a measuring device for mapping the world quantitatively as well as qualitatively

5. that there probably existed a notion of equivalence on the basis of weight among different materials (in this we postulate the weighing of objects of one material against others of the same material) and hence it may follow the ratio of value betwen them

6. that this inferred concept of value may have enabled some constant rate of exchange ..."


I think it was perhaps this passage that led me to guess that the author of your excerpt, and the introduction to McDonald's book, was Renfrew.

Incidentally, you might be interested in the contents of page 351, where they discuss the Megalithic Yard:

"The outcome of this discussion is not yet certain. What is clear is that statistical methods now exist to allow ... such hypotheses. In cases where the result is shown to be significant at a very fine level such as 0.1%, we may be confident that a regular unit of measure was used provided always that the data have been fairly sampled and that appropriate statistical tests have been carried out."

Hermione
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