Who invented numbers?

The invention of numbers is not credited to one individual but is believed to have developed when ancient civilizations began to trade and individuals needed a way to count the materials they traded, as well as the compensation they received.

Early counting used fingers to number each item. Simple markers, such as rocks, served to count larger numbers. The abacus, one of the earliest formal counting tools, was invented about 1200 A.D. in China. The ancient Greeks developed math into a science starting in 600 B.C. Archimedes, who was born sometime after 300 B.C., is credited with discovering the number pi to calculate the surface of a sphere.