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Where do measurement units come from?
Units as they exist today are highly abstract. Meters, miles,
and other modern measures have no obvious basis in concrete
phenomena and can apply to anything, anywhere. We show
here, however, that units have not always been this way.
Focusing on length, we first analyze the origins of length
units in the Oxford English Dictionary; next, we review
ethnographic observations about length measurement in 111
cultures. Our survey shows that length units have
overwhelmingly come from concrete sources—body parts,
artifacts, and other tangible phenomena—and are often tied to
particular contexts. We next propose a reconstruction of how
abstract units might have emerged gradually over cultural
time through processes of comparison. Evidence from how
children understand length and measurement provides support
for this account. The case of units offers a powerful
illustration of how some of our most important, pervasive
abstractions can arise from decidedly concrete, often
embodied origins