Numbers resulted from our need to keep track of things. First we used our hand digits to count - thus our base 10 system - then our toes, and when things got more complicated we started to use stones or scratches on rocks or wood. I have a great, wonderful book called "A Universal History of Numbers" . And it's not boring, or repetitive - it has thousands of illustrations and great histories of the number systems from countries across the globe.

http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Hist.../dp/0471375683

It is really a good book, Paul.

From a review:
The title doesn't lie. Mathematician Georges Ifrah's masterpiece, The Universal History of Numbers, is a wonderfully comprehensive overview of numbers and counting spanning all the inhabited continents as far back in time as records will allow us to look. Beyond the ancient Babylonians, Sumerians, and Indians, Ifrah takes us farther south into Africa to examine an early decimal counting system and into ancient Mexico to reconstruct what we can of the Mayan calendar and numerical system. The 27 chapters are chiefly organized by culture, though there are some cross-cultural overviews of topics like letters and numbers.

The author's aim was grand: "to provide in simple and accessible terms the full and complete answer to all and any questions ... about the history of numbers and counting, from prehistory to the age of computers." This led him to wander the world for 10 years, studying and learning; this scholastic pilgrim has returned with amazing stories to tell. Toward the end of the book, Ifrah makes the book truly universal by refuting alien-intervention theories of cultural origins--surely our benefactors would have given us an efficient decimal counting system, zero and all, before helping us build pyramids and such. Such charming ideas, combined with such rigorously researched facts, make The Universal History of Numbers a uniquely important and fascinating volume. --Rob Lightner

If you are interested in numbers at all, this is the book for you.