Say its the year 5 B.C.E. I'm guessing people were not like "Hey, only 5 more years before its the year 0 and we start counting forward!" So I'm curious as to what people thought the years were or if they even had years that they counted.
You should probably specify a specific time and place because this varied based on those factors.
hi! you'll find lots of discussion on counting years in these two related sections of the FAQ (link on sidebar):