Image 1 Caption: A comparison of modern human (Homo sapien) and Neanderthal skulls in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, Ohio:
Features:
But what of Neanderthals? Did they do counting? It now seems clear that Neanderthals were cognitively different from human sapiens: see Wikipedia: TKTL1 and Sara Reardon, Nature, 2022 Sep08, "A mutation present in modern humans seems to drive greater neuron growth than does an ancient hominin version". But that doesn't mean they couldn't count.
Well, counting
of anything
could have been kept track of
in many Paleolithic societies
on tally sticks.
We know in some societies that the start of the
lunar month was the
observationl first crescent
even though that is obviously dependent on
weather.