Native Americans were making dice and using probabilty theory at least 12,000 years ago, making them the world's oldest evidence of gambling, according to a new study published in American Antiquity.
In total, archaeologist Robert Madden observed 659 sets of Native American dice from 57 archaeological sites across 12 different states.
Out of those, he found 565 “diagnostic” examples of Native American dice and 94 “probable” examples of dice, all from the “precontact periods (Late Pleistocene / Early Holocene, Middle Holocene, and Late Holocene), spanning roughly 13,000 years of North American prehistory.”
His analysis is based on the markers presented in Stewart Culin's 1907 Games of the North American Indians, a catalogue of nearly 300 sets of dice used by Indigenous peoples across the continent.
The three oldest sets of dice found, dating to nearly 12,900 years ago, were from Folsom culture sites in Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, the study explained, noting that they also predate the “earliest currently known dice in the Old World by millennia.”
In addition, the findings indicate that Native American groups were some of the first to use probability theory, which was later formally developed by European mathematicians in the 1600s, most likely based on dice games.
“This is the first evidence we have of structured human engagement with the concepts of chance and randomness,” Madden said to Live Science. "We're seeing really complex practices and an intellectual accomplishment here.”
“The dice tend to show up in liminal spaces where you have a lot of high mobility. It might have something to do with how separated these people are and the need to relate to people you don't see very often.”
Purpose of dice games
Further, the study presented several suggestions for the purpose of these games within Indigenous communities.
While there is not much physical evidence, the study noted that there are numerous cultural accounts of Native American traditions portraying dice games as a sacred activity, played during both ceremonial and secular events.
Additionally, the study argued that dice and gambling may have been created as an icebreaker to play with strangers who would have otherwise had no framework for interaction.
While trade usually depended on an existing relationship, dice games created a temporary, rule-governed space for the exhange goods, information or creating connection.