what is the site for early history of mathematics?

History of Maths ( If you want more information then try the link given in sources )

The area of study known as the history of mathematics is primarily an investigation into the origin of new discoveries in mathematics, to a lesser extent, an investigation into the standard mathematical methods and notation of the past.

Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments have come to light only in a few locales. The most ancient mathematical texts available are Plimpton 322 (Babylonian mathematics ca. 1900 BC), the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian mathematics ca. 1850 BC), the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian mathematics ca. 1650 BC), and the Shulba Sutras (Indian mathematics ca. 800 BC). All of these texts concern the so-called Pythagorean theorem, which seems to be the most ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry.

Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics were then further developed in Greek and Hellenistic mathematics, which is generally considered to be one of the most important for greatly expanding both the method and the subject matter of mathematics.[1] The mathematics developed in these ancient civilizations were then further developed and greatly expanded in Islamic mathematics. Many Greek and Arabic texts on mathematics were then translated into Latin in medieval Europe and further developed there.

One striking feature of the history of ancient and medieval mathematics is that bursts of mathematical development were often followed by centuries of stagnation. Beginning in Renaissance Italy in the 16th century, new mathematical developments, interacting with new scientific discoveries, were made at an ever increasing pace, and this continues to the present day.

................Early mathematics............

Long before the earliest written records, there are drawings that do indicate a knowledge of mathematics and of measurement of time based on the stars. For example, paleontologists have discovered ochre rocks in a cave in South Africa adorned with scratched geometric patterns dating back to c. 70,000 BC.[2] Also prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa and France, dated between 35,000 BC and 20,000 BC,[3] indicate early attempts to quantify time.[4]

Evidence exists that early counting involved women who kept records of their monthly biological cycles; twenty-eight, twenty-nine, or thirty scratches on bone or stone, followed by a distinctive marker, for example. Moreover, hunters had the concepts of one, two, and many, as well as the idea of none or zero, when considering herds of animals.[5][6]

The Ishango Bone, found in the area of the headwaters of the Nile River (northeastern Congo), dates as early as 20,000 BC. One common interpretation is that the bone is the earliest known demonstration[7] of sequences of prime numbers and Ancient Egyptian multiplication. Predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric spatial designs. It has been claimed that Megalithic monuments in England and Scotland from the 3rd millennium BC, incorporate geometric ideas such as circles, ellipses, and Pythagorean triples in their design.[8]

The earliest known mathematics in ancient India dates back to circa 3000-2600 BC in the Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan civilization) of North India and Pakistan, which developed a system of uniform weights and measures that used the decimal system, a surprisingly advanced brick technology which utilised ratios, streets laid out in perfect right angles, and a number of geometrical shapes and designs, including cuboids, barrels, cones, cylinders, and drawings of concentric and intersecting circles and triangles. Mathematical instruments discovered include an accurate decimal ruler with small and precise subdivisions, a shell instrument that served as a compass to measure angles on plane surfaces or in horizon in multiples of 40–360 degrees, a shell instrument used to measure 8–12 whole sections of the horizon and sky, and an instrument for measuring the positions of stars for navigational purposes. The Indus script has not yet been deciphered; hence very little is known about the written forms of Harappan mathematics. Archeological evidence has led some historians to believe that this civilization used a base 8 numeral system and possessed knowledge of the ratio of the length of the circumference of the circle to its diameter, thus a value of π.[9] Dating from the Shang Dynasty (1600—1046 BC), the earliest extant Chinese mathematics consists of numbers scratched on tortoise shell [1] [2]. These numbers use a decimal system, so that the number 123 is written (from top to bottom) as the symbol for 1 followed by the symbol for a hundred, then the symbol for 2 followed by the symbol for ten, then the symbol for 3. This was the most advanced number system in the world at the time and allowed calculations to be carried out on the suan pan or Chinese abacus. The date of the invention of the suan pan is not certain, but the earliest written reference was in AD 190 in the Supplementary Notes on the Art of Figures written by Xu Yue

Ancient Near East (c. 1800-500 BC)

[edit] Mesopotamia

Main article: Babylonian mathematics

Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the people of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) from the days of the early Sumerians until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. It is named Babylonian mathematics due to the central role of Babylon as a place of study, which ceased to exist during the Hellenistic period. From this point, Babylonian mathematics merged with Greek and Egyptian mathematics to give rise to Hellenistic mathematics. Later under the Arab Empire, Iraq/Mesopotamia, especially Baghdad, once again became an important center of study for Islamic mathematics.

In contrast to the sparsity of sources in Egyptian mathematics, our knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived from more than 400 clay tablets unearthed since the 1850s. Written in Cuneiform script, tablets were inscribed whilst the clay was moist, and baked hard in an oven or by the heat of the sun. Some of these appear to be graded homework.

The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates back to the ancient Sumerians, who built the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia. They developed a complex system of metrology from 3000 BC. From around 2500 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. The earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period.[10]

The majority of recovered clay tablets date from 1800 to 1600 BC, and cover topics which include fractions, algebra, quadratic and cubic equations, and the calculation of Pythagorean triples (see Plimpton 322).[11] The tablets also include multiplication tables, trigonometry tables and methods for solving linear and quadratic equations. The Babylonian tablet YBC 7289 gives an approximation to √2 accurate to five decimal places.

Babylonian mathematics were written using a sexagesimal (base-60) numeral system. From this we derive the modern day usage of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 x 6) degrees in a circle. Babylonian advances in mathematics were facilitated by the fact that 60 has many divisors. Also, unlike the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, the Babylonians had a true place-value system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values, much as in the decimal system. They lacked, however, an equivalent of the decimal point, and so the place value of a symbol often had to be inferred from the context.

when in doubt, go to wikipedia.com, it's the free encyclopedia online, but if you are writing a report on that topic, do not copy and paste the content, read thoroughly, and use your own words, that will give you extra credit

I don't know whether you are aware of VEDIC MATHS. there are ample of websites providing history abot it

some sites:-www.rebeccanewburn.com

www.vedic maths forum.com

u can check out wikipedia

try these-------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematic...

http://www.projectmathematics.com/history.htm

www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa50 - 42k