Abstract

This chapter addresses the paradox of how human beings could have developed number concepts in the absence of numeral systems–systems that are, in turn, typically required for such concepts to emerge. Known as “the origins problem,” this puzzle challenges developmental accounts that emphasize the dependence of number concept acquisition on pre-existing symbolic systems. The chapter begins with Pelland’s formulation of the problem and explores a novel resolution grounded in Dutilh Novaes’s theory of re-semantification. It argues that early numeral systems could have emerged through semantic shifts in pre-existing symbolic practices among anumeric peoples. Drawing on linguistic and anthropological evidence, the chapter proposes a historically plausible account of how humans may have first constructed numeral systems–and with them, the conceptual foundations for number.