Michelle Beale, age 11, of Tulsa, Okla  her question:

Who were the first people to use numbers?

Did you ever wonder why figures were called digits? A digit is also a finger, or a toe. Looks like you are not the first person to invent counting the slow, sure way ‑ on the fingers. Ancient records seem to show that all counting began that way, It began before the dawn of history, Mans wandering days were over. People were settled in far‑scattered, fertile valleys,, Each settlement, it seems, figured out digit counting for ' themselves,

The first counters may have been shepherds. They tallied their flocks with notches cut on a stick ‑ one notch. one sheep. Written numbers began about 5000 years‑ago. By then, two handfuls of digits had been grouped to make figure ten. The settlers by the Nile wrote with ink on papyrus.

Numbers one to nine were still shown with strokes. But the single upright lines were grouped together. I, II, III IIII were just what you would guess. The rest were arranged in tiers. Five was written with 3 strokes upstairs over 2 strokes, eight was written with 4 strokes over 4.

The settlers by the Tigris and Euphrates wrote with sticks on clay. The ends of the writing sticks were dented little arrowheads. This is called cuniform, or wedge‑shaped writing, Through the years, these ingenious people arranged combinations of their little arrows to write figures and words,

. They were using a down pointing arrow for figures 1 and an arrow pointing to the left for 10 as long as 5000 years ago.

Other peoples may have written numbers this long ago. But so far no records have been found. The people of Crete used a horizontal bar for figure ten and uprights for other numbers some 3000 years ago. The people of China had invented a special figure for number 4 some 3,300 years ago. Its elegant strokes varied in different areas,

A figure for 5, one handful of digits, seems to have been invented later, Hold your hand with fingers close and thumb wide. See why V became the popular figure five