What is it about?
The Material Origin of Numbers examines how number concepts are realized, represented, manipulated, and elaborated. Utilizing the cognitive archaeological framework of Material Engagement Theory and culling data from disciplines including neuroscience, ethnography, linguistics, and archaeology, Overmann offers a methodologically rich study of numbers and number concepts in the ancient Near East from the late Upper Paleolithic Period through the Bronze Age. This project has received funding from the Clarendon Fund at the University of Oxford, as well as the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 785793. Overmann, K. A. (2019). The material origin of numbers: Insights from the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0743-4
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Perspectives
I am interested in how societies become numerate by using and recruiting material forms into the cognitive system for numbers over generations of collaborative effort. The manuovisually engaged domain of material forms is a primary mechanism for realizing and elaborating numerical concepts. I also look at the effect this elaborational mechanism has on conceptual content, and what this might augur about the future of human cognition.
Dr. Karenleigh A. Overmann
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
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This page is a summary of: CHAPTER 9. THE NEOLITHIC CLAY TOKENS, December 2019, Gorgias Press LLC,
DOI: 10.31826/9781463240691-012.
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