TY - JOUR
AU1 - Salzmann, Zdeněk
AB -  The DiJusion of Counting Practices. A. SEIDENBERG, (University of California Publications in Mathematics, Volume 3, Number 4.)Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960. pp. 215-299, 2 bibliographies, 8 figures, 2 maps, 1 plate. $2.50 (paper-bound). Reviewed by ZDENEKSALZMANN, Sedona, Arizona The purpose of this monograph is “to establish the diffused character of counting” (Introduction, p. 215). A future work promised by the author is to show the origin of American Anthropologist [63, 19611 counting practices “as a device for calling the participants in [the creation] ritual onto the ritual scene” (p. 215). The entire study “is intended as a contribution to Lord Raglan’s general theory that civilization had a ritual origin, . . . [a] theory [which] is associated with another, namely, the theory of the Diffusion of Culture . . . ” (p. 215). Seidenberg’s thesis, in brief, is this: Since it can be clearly shown that counting is not instinctive behavior, there is no need to assume that it arose spontaneously in different places. The pure binary method of counting which, judging from its distribution, was the first numerical system to be invented, had a single origin in time and space and subsequently spread 
TI - LINGUISTICS: The Diffusion of Counting Practices . A. Seidenberg
JF - American Anthropologist
DO - 10.1525/aa.1961.63.3.02a00500
DA - 1961-06-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/linguistics-the-diffusion-of-counting-practices-a-seidenberg-0ksGrNjNQc
SP - 649
VL - 63
IS - 3
DP - DeepDyve
ER -