Numerical Digit - History of Ancient Numbers

History of Ancient Numbers

Counting aids, especially the use of body parts (counting on fingers), were certainly used in prehistoric times as today. There are many variations. Besides counting 10 fingers, some cultures have counted knuckles, the space between fingers, and toes as well as fingers. The Oksapmin culture of New Guinea uses a system of 27 upper body locations to represent numbers.

To preserve numerical information, tallies carved in wood, bone, and stone have been used since prehistoric times. Stone age cultures, including ancient American Indian groups, used tallies for gambling, personal services, and trad

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