Every afternoon he got back to his cave with a lot of deer.

He always drew pictures in the cave to show how many deer he caught.

How many deer did Ugg catch this time?

Did you say 4? Yes, that's right. Ugg caught four deer.

So he drew four deer. He didn't know how to write the numeral 4

because this was before people worked out how to write numerals.

Ugg went hunting another day. How many deer did he catch this time?

Did you say 8? Yes, that's right. Ugg caught eight deer.

So he drew eight deer. He didn't know how to write the numeral 8

because this was before people worked out how to write numerals.

Ugg didn't even know how many he had. He didn't know there were eight.

He just knew there was one picture for each deer.

One day Ugg had an ABSOLUTELY GREAT day hunting.

He caught SO MANY deer!

But it took him a long time to draw the deer.

It took Ugg more time to draw the deer

than it had taken him to catch them!

He scratched his head and thought. There had to be an easier way

to show how many deer he had caught!

He had covered most of the cave wall with pictures of deer!

So he decided just to draw a mark for each deer.

That was much quicker.

One day Ugg had a great day and he caught this many deer:

He looked at the marks.

He looked at his fingers.

He looked at the picture again.

He looked at his fingers again.

There was one mark on the cave wall for each finger.

Do you know how many marks there were?

Yes! There were 10!

Ugg thought for a while. He scratched his head again.

He looked at his fingers.

Then he had a brilliant idea!

"I will put a BIG mark for that many deer. I have that many fingers."

So on the cave wall he drew a BIG mark like this:

Ugg knew that a big mark like that meant this many deer:

There was one deer for each finger!

TEN DEER AND TEN FINGERS!

Of course Ugg didn't say it was ten. He hadn't worked that out yet.

He just knew there was one deer for each finger.

One day he had an excellent day hunting and he caught lots of reindeer.

He caught this many:

He looked at all the marks and when he had ten he put a big mark

and then small marks for the rest.

Do you know how many deer he caught?

Yes, he caught 16 deer.

But then he put one big mark and six little marks

because cave men had not worked out how to write numerals in an easy way.

One day Ugg and some other cave men went hunting

and they caught LOTS AND LOTS of deer.

Ugg told the other cave men he could draw a quick picture

of how many deer they had caught.

This is what he drew. Do you know how many deer they caught?

Did you say 25? You are right!

One day Ugg and the other cave men saw lots of hairy mammoths.

They went hunting and caught some.

Ugg drew marks to show how many they saw.

This is how many they saw:

How many did they see?

Did you say 39?

Yes!

This is how many they caught.

They caught 3 hairy mammoths.

Ugg decided he would draw mammoths this time because they didn't

catch very many. Maybe he just liked drawing mammoths!

(And if you are thinking these don't look much like hairy mammoths, you are right! They are really elephants. Draw some curving tusks on them to make them look more like mammoths.)


But when there were lots it was much easier to put marks.

He put a small mark for each one.

He put a BIG mark for each lot of ten.

They saw this many hairy mammoths:

They caught this many hairy mammoths:

Ugg was the first person to write numerals.

This is not a really true story,

because only other cave people were around to see Ugg,

and they did not know how to write letters and words

to tell about his wonderful idea.

And it is probably not true that cavemen

(like the Neanderthals) were able even to think about numbers like this.

It was much later that people started to count

and write down the numbers.

But it is true in a way

because this is how people started to count

and to write numerals.

They used TENS because they had TEN fingers,

counting the thumbs too.

If people had EIGHT fingers, counting the thumbs too,

we would have counted in EIGHTS.

Here are some animal pictures.

You can print this all off.

Write the numerals the way Ugg would have.

Then write them the way we do now.

The first one has been done for you.

Then you can colour the pictures in.

I can write it like this: 12

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this:

Ugg would have written this number this way:

I can write it like this: