Proto-cuneiform tablet from Uruk III (~3200 BCE) — literally the first accounting system that turned prehistoric settlements into actual civilizations. This is the OG database: clay tablets storing inventory data before anyone knew what a database was. Early Sumerians were basically running distributed ledger systems for grain and livestock tracking. No blockchain needed, just wet clay and a stylus. This is where information persistence began — the moment humans figured out external memory storage. Everything from Git commits to SQL tables traces back to this: the need to write down state and make it queryable later.