Space, structuring, figure: A prehistoric legacy

International audienceGeometry has a history, that much is obvious, but what is certainly less obvious is that it also has a prehistory. Geometry before Euclid (c. 300 BC) and before the great classical texts (from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Vedic India and China), far from being a clear-cut and self-contained science, should be seen as scattered fragments arising out of diverse human activities. In the creation of stone tools, or in rituals based on symbolic drawings, a series of mental reflexes were formed, self evident truths, which are the implicit foundations of the first geometric texts : the three dimensions of space, the plane as the main workplace, the basic figures (straight line, rectangle, circle) and their elements (points and lines), and comparison of magnitudes. What will be talked about is a description of these fragmentary beginnings, through an analysis of the key stages in paleolithic toolmaking, in symbolic drawing as expressed in rock and cave art and among traditional peoples.