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During my undergrad studies, I took a number of history classes with Dr. Anne-Marie Wolf, who specializes in the Middle Ages. (Don’t call them the Dark Ages, that’s rude. We know a lot of things about that period, it’s not a lost era.) When she told us how to parse information from ancient laws, I felt like I was let in to a secret logical door out of a supposed dead end alley of knowledge.

If there is an ancient law text that says “Anyone who steals a chicken will be fined 20x,” you cannot say with authority that people who stole chickens were ever fined 20x. This does not mean it is a statement bereft of information. You can know for sure that people stole chickens. If people did not steal chickens, they wouldn’t bother writing the law down. You can also tell that they had a monetary system, and that chickens were of enough value in that community that it was worth writing down a law about their abduction. Differences between punishments can also tell you about societal values and priorities. A society that has a lesser sentence for killing a woman than killing a pregnant woman considers a pregnant woman to be of greater value. You might infer that the society was focused on growing larger and needed a greater military or manual labor force.

This has stayed with me, so when I see signs that say “No Smoking” I know that people have smoked there, and seeing a sign that says “Do not leave belongings unattended,” tells me that at some point, someone left their belongings which led to a problem large enough to merited making a sign about it.

This statement implies mean activities.

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