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From the Vault: Where do numbers come from?

Stuff To Blow Your Mind

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Is There a Difference Between 27 and 28?

Some languages don't have individual words for higher and higher numbers, but start to become approximate. A study published in the cambridge archaeological journal called material scaffolds in numbers and time looked at evidence from 33 existing hunter gatherer societies. The specificity of higher number symbols cor onded with societies that had more material possessions like weapons, tools and jewelry. Meanwhile, societies with fewer individual material possessions were more likely,. on average, to have a language system with without specific numbers higher than four or five or so.

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