Regardless how striking is this discovery, I cannot but assume it, as counting is an intellectual ability or performance that satisfies the expression of a drive originating in the “reptilian brain” – the first and most primitive and most elementary of our three brains to be found in the skull of all human beings, according to Paul McLean. A drive we use to call the “need to survive,” as individual and as species.

Primitive African tribesmen count and exchange camels (they acquire in order to eat them or drink their milk in order to survive as individuals) against women (in order to copulate and reproduce, and thus survive as a species) or else according to a precisely defined scale of values universally admitted within their cultural sphere, for wants of a similarly universally accepted currency. They still exist in greater numbers than Amazonians, in most instances; and tend to spread their culture beyond the borders of their respective territories; or even happen to foster some foreign ones, in some instances – each time it suits the need to survive.