Cross-culturally, fingers are the first material structure used for counting because they are neurologically integrated with the ability to perceive quantity, visually salient, socially prevalent, and standard in their quantity. Since gestures don’t preserve, finger-counting tends to be archaeologically invisible. A possible exception comes from France. Around 25,000 years ago at Cosquer and Gargas, people placed their hands against the cave walls and then blew paint around them, leaving outlines of their fingers and palm. Some of these stencils have shortened fingers. While scholars have speculated on possible causes, the sets of finger-patterns at these caves are not consistent with disease, injury, or ritual mutilation. Instead, the Cosquer set looks like finger-counting performed by sequentially extending the fingers of one hand. The Gargas set contains the same five patterns, along with five more that might have been hunting signs. Nonetheless, there are reasons to be cautious about this interpretation: for example, paint degradation makes finger length difficult to judge. Traits like color, placement within the cave, and the makers’ age and gender also mean that the stencils’ social purpose remains a mystery.