This is a book about numbers - what they are as concepts and how and why they originate - as viewed through the material devices used to represent and manipulate them. Fingers, tallies, tokens, and written notations, invented in both ancestral and contemporary societies, explain what numbers are, why they are the way they are, and how we get them. Overmann is the first to explore how material devices contribute to numerical thinking, initially by helping us to visualize and manipulate the perceptual experience of quantity that we share with other species. She explores how and why numbers are conceptualized and then elaborated, as well as the central role that material objects play in both processes. Overmann's volume thus offers a view of numerical cognition that is based on an alternative set of assumptions about numbers, their material component, and the nature of the human mind and thinking.

This book addresses the material devices used to represent and manipulate numerical concepts.

About the Author
Karenleigh A. Overmann earned her doctorate in archaeology from the University of Oxford as a Clarendon scholar after retiring from twenty-five years of active service in the US Navy. She currently directs the Center for Cognitive Archaeology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.


Book Information
ISBN 9781009361248
Author Karenleigh A. Overmann
Format Hardback
Page Count 350
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 760g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 158mm * 29mm