Easter Island, between its colonization by humans in 1000 CE and its worse colonization by Europeans in 1700 CE, had a maximum population of maybe 12,000. It’s one of the most remote islands in the world. In isolation from other societies, they did develop a written language, in fact Polynesia’s only native written language.
They are claimed to have developed it in isolation; but you are providing a good argument for why some weak evidence for it should not convince us that a fullblown script sprung out of nowhere for what would be the tiniest population by many orders of magnitude to do so.
They are claimed to have developed it in isolation; but you are providing a good argument for why some weak evidence for it should not convince us that a fullblown script sprung out of nowhere for what would be the tiniest population by many orders of magnitude to do so.
This is a very good point!