Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T22:40:44.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The prehistory of number concept

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Karenleigh A. Overmann ,
Thomas Wynn  and
Frederick L. Coolidge
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80918. [email protected]
Thomas Wynn
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80918. [email protected]
Frederick L. Coolidge
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80918. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Carey leaves unaddressed an important evolutionary puzzle: In the absence of a numeral list, how could a concept of natural number ever have arisen in the first place? Here we suggest that the initial development of natural number must have bootstrapped on a material culture scaffold of some sort, and illustrate how this might have occurred using strings of beads.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , June 2011 , pp. 142 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrose, S. H. (1998) Chronology of the Later Stone Age and food production in East Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 25:377–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Matthews, M., Marean, C. W., Jacobs, Z., Karkanas, P., Fisher, E. C., Herries, A. I. R., Brown, K., Williams, H. M., Bernatchez, J., Ayalon, A. & Nilssen, P. J. (2010) A high resolution and continuous isotopic speleothem record of paleoclimate and paleoenvironment from 90 to 53 ka from Pinnacle Point on the south coast of South Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 29:2131–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, S. (2009) The origin of concepts. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d'Errico, F. & Cacho, C. (1994) Notation versus decoration in the Upper Palaeolithic: A case study from Tossal de la Roca, Alicante, Spain. Journal of Archaeological Science 21:185–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d'Errico, F., Henshilwood, C., Vanhaeren, M. & van Niekerk, K. (2005) Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from Blombos Cave: Evidence for symbolic behaviour in the Middle Stone Age. Journal of Human Evolution 48:3–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuhn, S. L., Stiner, M. C., Güleç, E., Özer, I., Yilmaz, H., Baykara, I., Açikkol, A., Goldberg, P., Molina, K. M., Ünay, E. & Suata-Alpasian, F. (2009) The early Upper Paleolithic occupations at Üçağizli Cave (Hatay, Turkey). Journal of Human Evolution 56:87–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malafouris, L. (2010) Grasping the concept of number: How did the sapient mind move beyond approximation? In: The archaeology of measurement: Comprehending heaven, earth and time in ancient societies, ed. Renfrew, C. & Morley, I., pp. 35–42. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menninger, Karl W. (1992) Number words and number symbols: A cultural history of numbers. Dover.Google Scholar
Schmandt-Besserat, D. (1992) How writing came about. University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. A. & Clark, A. (2009) How to situate cognition: Letting nature take its course. In: The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition, ed. Robbins, P. & Aydede, M., pp. 55–77. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar