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?
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.) You're probably referring to the Ishango bone
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.