Editing Number (section)

===First use of numbers===
{{main|History of ancient numeral systems}}
Bones and other artifacts have been discovered with marks cut into them that many believe are [[tally marks]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marshack |first=Alexander |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vbQ9AAAAIAAJ |title=The roots of civilization; the cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol, and notation (1st ed.) |date=1971 |publisher=McGraw-Hill |isbn=0-07-040535-2 |location=New York |oclc=257105}}</ref> These tally marks may have been used for counting elapsed time, such as numbers of days, lunar cycles or keeping records of quantities, such as of animals.

A tallying system has no concept of place value (as in modern [[decimal]] notation), which limits its representation of large numbers. Nonetheless, tallying systems are considered the first kind of abstract numeral system.

The earliest unambiguous numbers in the archaeological record are the [[Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement|Mesopotamian base&nbsp;60]] system ({{circa|3400}}&nbsp;BC);<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schmandt-Besserat |first=Denise |title=Before Writing: From Counting to Cuneiform (2 vols) |publisher=University of Texas Press |date=1992}}</ref> place value emerged in it in the 3rd millennium BCE.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robson |first=Eleanor |title=Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=2008}}</ref> The earliest known base&nbsp;10 system dates to 3100&nbsp;BC in [[Egypt]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/Ancient-Africa/mad_ancient_egyptpapyrus.html#berlin |title=Egyptian Mathematical Papyri – Mathematicians of the African Diaspora |publisher=Math.buffalo.edu |access-date=2012-01-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150407231917/http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/Ancient-Africa/mad_ancient_egyptpapyrus.html#berlin |archive-date=2015-04-07 |url-status=live }}</ref>