Materiality and the Prehistory of Number

What is it about?

Modern humans produce number systems with striking cross-cultural similarities. Understanding prehistoric numerical cognition, however, requires looking at when cognitive prerequisites emerged: morphological factors like parietal encephalization; abilities like quantity perception, language, concept formation and manipulation, categorization, and ordinality; and demographic factors suggesting societal motivations for numerical development. These establish the “probably not before” timeline for numerical emergence. The question is then approached from the earliest emergence of unambiguous numbers in Mesopotamia, clay tokens used in the late 4th millennium and subsequent numerical notations. With tokens and notations, the archaeological and textual evidence of precursor technologies like tallies and fingers form a sequence capable of elaborating the innate perceptual experience of quantity into simple counting sequences and complex mathematics. Along with the cognitive prerequisites, the sequence of material forms also provides insight into potential archaeological evidence (material forms and demographic factors) that might indicate numerical emergence in prehistoric times.

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Photo by Crissy Jarvis on Unsplash

Photo by Crissy Jarvis on Unsplash

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