How did mathematical ability evolve?
Keith Devlin

Mathematics, as we generally understand it, is at most 5,000 years old.
(Numbers are at most 10,000 years old.) That's too short a period for any
major changes in the human brain. So, when we do mathematics, we must be
using mental capacities that evolved long before mathematics came along.
What are those abilities and what survival advantages led to their finding
their way into the human gene pool? And if everyone has these abilities -
as an evolutionary account will imply - why do so many people find math
impossibly hard?

Based on Devlin's book The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved
and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip. (Basic Books, 2000)