New Research Shows Native Americans Invented Dice 12,000 Years Ago

The earliest known dice were crafted and used by Native American hunter-gatherers more than 12,000 years ago.

“A groundbreaking new study has revealed that the world's oldest known dice were crafted and used by Native American hunter-gatherers more than 12,000 years ago”

Ancient Origins

These dice predate the oldest known dice from Bronze Age societies in the Old World by over 6,000 years.

Ars Technica

The artifacts were two-sided binary lots carefully crafted from bone for use in structured games of chance.

Madden re-examined 293 sets of Indigenous dice cataloged in 1907.

He identified 659 diagnostic and probable dice ranging in date from 13,000 to 450 years ago.

Earth

The dice were integral to complex social and probabilistic practices that persisted for millennia.

Games of chance have been a persistent feature of Native American culture for at least 12,000 years.

“At the end of the last Ice Age, on the open plains of the American West, small pieces of bone were shaped, marked on one side, and tossed by hand”

Discover Magazine

Artifacts show continuity across major environmental and social transitions.

The discovery reframes global histories of gambling away from a Eurocentric narrative.