raincole 4 days ago

How do we know humans did "counting" when there weren't no written text? Just a few marks on the stone? Does it not count as writing?

2
gus_massa 4 days ago

Quipu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

I remember an article about credit in stores in tiny towns in Spain. It was just a rod of wood with some simbol as a signature of the store. Each time you buy something ¿big? they add a mark, and when you get all the ¿10? marks you have to pay with real money.

IIRC, the oldest number recorded was some kind of lunar calendar in a bone, wit marks like

  IIIIIII IIIIIII IIIIIIII IIIIIII
  IIIIIII IIIIIII IIIIIII IIIIIII
Coincidence? (I don't remember the details, but the article was convincing.)

griffzhowl 4 days ago

You're probably referring to the Ishango bone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishango_bone

mmooss 4 days ago

There is a matter of definition. IIRC, if you lookup some cave paintings from ~30,000 years ago, there is/was a debate whether marks near animals were intended to represent quantities.