When Humans Learned to Count

Science is looking into the early history of language, which is difficult because spoken words left no trace before the 19th century, and written words are only a few thousands of years old. But when we look into the ancient history of counting, we actually have physical evidence of prehistoric numbers. A South African cave held skeletons dated to the Middle Stone Age, some 42,000 years ago. In the 1970s, a baboon bone was found there, with 29 deliberate markings, evenly spaced but made at different times with different tools. This was a tally stick, used to record a number of something. This stick is not only evidence of human counting, but the earliest known use of an external object to record information.

Human counting appears to have arisen naturally and independently, because it is so useful for keeping track of allies, enemies, threats, and possessions (not to mention children). Different cultures came up with different numerically-based systems. The most obvious is base ten, because we have ten fingers. But there are also systems based on five, for one-handed counting, or twenty when you include toes, or other numbers based on handy body parts. It is believed that ancient Sumerians, who bought and sold goods, developed writing as an extension of keeping accounting records, which began with numbers. Read how these early tallying methods came about at Lapham's Quarterly. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Roger McLassus)