NUMBER EVOLUTION. “The next step in the evolution of numerical notation were three-dimensional clay accounting tokens that archeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat discovered in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that were used from 8000 BCE to about 3000 BCE.”
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-59177-9_13