How were numbers created before there was a number system?  How do you think of numbers without a word for numbers?  These are the questions that started this research project.

The origin of numbers stretches back past the fog of prehistory.  We know from physical evidence that paleolithic humans were both interested in an able to count.  The tokens, hand stencils, and use of a calendar system (An Upper Paleolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar, 2022, Bennett Bacon et all) show a sophisticated numerical tradition that is backed up by the linguistic evidence of number words being solidly defined in reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) words. For number words to be so firmly defined and unable to be associated with their original compound form so far back in time means the use of them must have predated PIE itself, placing them firmly in the early Neolithic at the latest.

Why look at linguistics for an origin of numbers?  Without surviving written documents (and the concession that the spoken pre-dates the written history) the only trace we have for an indiciation of a shift from one-to-one representation and association is hidden in how we speak of numbers.  Number words are invariably made up of compound words to begin with (as we will discuss later, "one" is an exception to this and many rules).  Before "six" is "six" it is five plus one, one left, or two threes.  It could be "other thumb/ finger", though "other" counting systems have drawbacks in numerical distinction.  It changes from any of those to "six" not by becoming a "real" or "proper" number but by use and time.  Words will, given enough time, naturally shorten and shift until the origin of the compound word is no longer recognizable and the number word becomes an Atom.    If the word was associated with another (hand and five are frequently close) the non-number word may even shift to distinguish itself from the number.  Atom words can then be used for later compound numbers (such as twenty-one) in a formulatic manner.

When the evidence for the age of number words is taken into account with the surviving evidence in bone, clay, and on cave walls it is clear that counting is as much a part of being human as language is.