The names of the men who pioneered in mathematics are lost in the same ancient mists that obscure all of mankind's early history. There are no records of the cavemen who, eons ago, first conceived the idea of counting: 1,2,3,4-many. As language evolved, so did counting and very simple arithmetic. Men added 2 arrows to 3 arrows and got 5. Often several sets of numbers were used, depending on ht objects being counted. Vestiges of these multi-number systems occur even in modern usage where a couple, a pair, a brace, and a duo all mean "2."
Millennia went by. Hundreds of generations rose from and sank back into the earth before the spoken number evolved into a written one. At first the notation system consisted simply of pictures of each object being counted- three bison painted on a cave wall recorded the number of animals a hunter had killed; four arrows scratched into a piece of bark indicated the quantity of his weapons. Even the early Egyptians used pictures of objects to show "how many." Neither the s poken nor the written number systems were as yet abstract, although pictures were the fist step in that direction, for a picture itself is not the actual object but only a symbol of it. Yet for each object being counted, a corresponding number of pictures were used. Numbers could not yet be thought of apart from the objects or pictures thereof being counted. Number was not a separate entity.