Talk:History of ancient numeral systems

message: I created History of writing numbers but I made the title too broad and it overlaps the subject matter of Numeral system.  So it was tagged as a merge candidate.  I conceded that.  It should have had a more restricted title such as History of writing ancient numbers so I created a new page that is about how writing ancient and pre-historic numbers began.  It is not about numbers in general; it is not about mathematics; it is not about numerals.  It is about how archaic writing began.  There is a lot more I expect to add to History of writing ancient numbers once I create .jpg files for the archaic numbers signs.  Greensburger 18:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging

message: It has been proposed to merge this "History of writing ancient numbers" article with the Numerical digit article. Greensburger (talk) 19:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging

message: The original source listed, does not suggest that the oldest tokens were from Syria.  Please review the prior source, regarding the age/origin of tokens.   To date, the oldest tokens were found in cities at the foothills of the Zagros mountains. Tepe Asiab and Ganj-i-Dareh Tepe  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.196.88.228 (talk) 03:25, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corrected information regarding origin of writing tokens.  

message: The very first sentence (as of May 13, 2015) states:"The first method of counting was counting on fingers." I don't dispute the assertion made above by Greensburger that:"In Wikipedia, we do not aspire to write the truth. We aspire to report what reliable sources say is the truth." What SHOULD be clear is that there is NO PLAUSIBLE reason that ANY opinion, reasoned or not, of how counting was first developed perhaps 40,000 years ago (or could it have been 400,000?) could be considered substantially more likely than the various alternatives. That is, given the current state of knowledge about our prehistory and psycho-neurology there is NO WAY we can reasonably choose between, say, use of fingers or use of hand signs, or verbal signals (language or prelinguistic utterings) as the "first method". Let me be clear that I have no strong opinion on whether finger counting was or was not first, but the implication that we now know it was (or was not) is false and also misleading. It shouldn't be stated as fact not because you can't find some "expert" who wrote such a statement, but because it doesn't pass the 'smell' test for scholarly, evidence based facts. (I am not only not an expert in this subject, I am not even well-informed about it, but never-the-less...Let me give a counter-argument: Counting was used originally to communicate (not to think).{note this is just supposed to be a plausible alternative, no claim of truth is made here}. The first communication used to convey magnitude was a verbalization accompanied by a rapid head shake (three grunts and three nods = 3). This later evolved into hand signs and even later finger movements eventually led to finger counting. I claim there is NO PLAUSIBLE way (given our current state of knowledge) that this can be factually proven or dis-proven, nor is there any good reason to prefer finger counting to it. I believe I could come up with several other plausible "first methods", but like this one, it would be either original research (a no-no here) or require more time than I'm willing to expend to dig into the literature. My point is that there just can't be any real "expert determination" when it comes to very early "first methods". We just don't understand when it occurred and what the capabilities were of our ancestors (not necessarily yet human) who first used it to communicate (or possibly (although imho less likely) to think (mentally analyze.)) The sentence needs to be changed, and possibly a more recent (Ifrah wrote that in 1985) source referred to - hopefully one who is less opinionated. I spent 30 minutes looking into Ifrah's work and credentials. If there is any doubt that he should NOT be used as a "reliable" source, please refer to http://www.ams.org/notices/200201/rev-dauben.pdf (and the second part of that book review, not cited here). In that analysis he is characterized as "show[ing] little restraint", relied "on the wrong experts," (he describes himself as an 'intellectual tourist', rather than a scholar or expert) or "was indifferent to their responses, or was not prepared to settle for their inconclusive results and the tentative nature of their research." It goes on to lambast his work, citing another scholar "Lévy explains that he and his colleagues felt an obligation to “rectify [Ifrah’s] deceptive, confused, even muddle-headed views." It should be clear to anybody that Ifrah should not be used as an expert (in anything other than self-promotion). 173.189.79.42 (talk) 20:39, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow. This HAS to be wrong. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It was originally tally marks back 40,000 years ago when cavemen wanted to write numbers and made tally marks for representing the numbers like 1 is 1 tally mark and 2 is 2 tally marks and so on. 2601:241:8600:A0F0:3928:D8C8:6D2B:3716 (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What did numbers look like when it was first written by humans? 

message: 5 ancient countings 124.106.172.230 (talk) 13:17, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Computer education 

message: "Numerical tablet(s)" is a term that occurs fairly frequently in discussions of this topic, and, accordingly, I think it's important that the term be used at least once in this article (presently, it's not used at all). If you can think of a better place to incorporate it, I won't object, but I strongly disagree with omitting it entirely. – Scyrme (talk) 18:11, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "numerical tablet" 

message: Not seeing how to enter the page numbers into the References section. When I add them to the Bibliography, they don't appear to transfer. However, the three items noted "page needed" are as follows: Reference 6, Dehaene 2011, is p. 176; Reference 18, Nissen et al. 1993, is pp. 25-29; Reference 33, Chrisomalis 2010, is pp. 247-249 Hazegrae (talk) 00:46, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! I've added them now. You add page numbers directly to the inline  templates rather than the citation they link to. The inline templates follow the format:  You can include up to four authors, listed by surname, before the year, each separated by a vertical line. If you add four names, the template automatically displays "[first author] et al." so further names aren't needed, although they should be included in the citation in the bibliography which the inline templates link to. – Scyrme (talk) 14:59, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha, I see it now. Didn't think to check higher in the document. Thanks for adding the info. Hazegrae (talk) 15:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "adding page numbers"