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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]
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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

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