This evidence also represents the moment when plants first became the subject of human artistic creations, as previous forms of art typically only showed animals and humans. This makes these pottery fragments one of the oldest pieces of mathematical evidence from prehistory, and shows evidence of spatial long division from even before the invention of numbers, the authors argue. Without written evidence it is difficult to assess the degree of the mathematical abilities possessed by prehistoric communities,” the authors wrote. Now, the Halafian culture appears to represent the moment plant representation because a subject of human artistic curiosity. The mathematical concepts reflected across these fragments predate the first written mathematical texts from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia.