There is a pretty interesting book called «Zero» that delves in to the history behind how human cultures have been using numbers for counting and calculations. Especially how the introduction of «zero» made big changes in how we count and relate to numbers. The babylonians used 60 as a base, which we still use today when measuring time (seconds and minutes). Apparently there are still some tribes that have names for only three or four numbers (1, 2, 3, 4), because they haven’t had the need for any higher numbers in their everyday lives. One factor for our need for higher numbers comes from our eventual trading in higher volumes and the development of more complex calculations.