Overview

This sourcebook presents an extensive look at cultural number systems in numeracy and writing systems. Based on a decade of research by the author, the work examines topics such as why Xerxes the First counted his army by having his men march through an enclosure big enough to hold 10,000 of them at a time, why the Hawaiian word for ""twenty"" means “nine and two,” why an ancient Greek mathematician was driven mad by irrational numbers, and how old counting might be and how we might know this. Along the way, the author describes topics such as dactylonomy, the ancient art of expressing and calculating numbers with the fingers; specified counting, the use of different counting sequences to count different types of objects; and the ephemeral abacus, strategies for counting that involve people and goods but not an actual device. The chapters are organized into six geographical areas (the ancient Near East, Africa, Europe, Asia/India, Oceania, and the Americas).

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9783031833823

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Author Information

Karenleigh A. Overmann directs the Center for Cognitive Archaeology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. She earned a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar. She completed two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Bergen, Norway as a Marie Curie research fellow. She investigates numeracy and literacy as complex cultural systems that emerge through sustained interactions between brains, behaviors, and material forms, using Material Engagement Theory as her theoretical framework. She is retired from the U.S. Navy, where she performed communications-electronics work as an enlisted Radioman before earning a commission under the Limited Duty Officer program.

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