Aside from astronomy, mathematics may be the oldest continuous branch of human thought, and unlike other branches, such as philosophy, and science, very little of mathematics has been discarded throughout history.
Even the earliest of human civilizations realized the concept of numbers were abstract, and this understand could be considered to be the first step in the creation of mathematics.
An additional step in this direction is the creation of arithmetical operations, addition and multiplication.
The first civilizations to venture in Mathematics proper were the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Indian and Chinese civilizations, possessing the ideas of whole number, fraction, arithmetic and algebra,