Numerical Abstraction in Prehistory. A View from Cognitive Archeology = Abstracción numérica en la Prehistoria. Una visión desde la arqueología cognitiva

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyse the origin of numerical abstraction. In his study, a Psychobiological and Social Model (Functional Structuralism) has been used on our cognitive evolution, and causal cognition processes as the main drivers of cognitive and behavioural development. The process takes place over a long historical period, because although it seems that there are antecedents at the end of the Middle Palaeolithic, its main development begins with the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, where archaeologically an advanced development of causal cognition related to measurement behaviours is observed. Its subsequent evolution to counting and numbering behaviours would depend on the social, technological and emotional development of Neolithic and Bronze Age societies.