![\"Diagnostic](\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge13\/image_14679e-Native-American-Dice.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDiagnostic and probable prehistoric Native American dice: (a, d) Signal Butte, Nebraska (Middle Holocene); (b) Agate Basin, Wyoming (Early Holocene); (c, f) Agate Basin, Wyoming (Late Pleistocene); (e, g) Lindenmeier, Colorado (Late Pleistocene); (h) Irvine, Wyoming (Late Holocene). Image credit: Division of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, American Museum of Natural History \/ Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorians have traditionally treated dice and probability as Old World innovations,\u201d said Colorado State University Ph.D. student Robert Madden<\/a>, author of the new study.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the archaeological record shows is that ancient Native American groups were deliberately making objects designed to produce random outcomes, and using those outcomes in structured games, thousands of years earlier than previously recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n The earliest examples identified by Madden come from Folsom sites dating to roughly 12,800-12,200 years ago.<\/p>\n Unlike modern cubic dice, these were two-sided dice known as binary lots, carefully crafted, small pieces of bone that were flat or slightly rounded, often oval or rectangular in shape, sized to be held in the hand and tossed in groups onto a playing surface.<\/p>\n The two faces of these binary lots were distinguished by applied markings, surface treatments, coloration, or other visible modifications, much like heads or tails on a coin, with one face designated as the counting side.<\/p>\n When thrown, they reliably landed with one side or the other facing upward, producing a binary (two-outcome) result.<\/p>\n Sets of these dice were cast together, and scores were determined by how many landed with the counting face up.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re simple, elegant tools. But they\u2019re also unmistakably purposeful. These are not casual byproducts of bone working. They were made to generate random outcomes,\u201d Madden said.<\/p>\n Rather than relying on subjective resemblance or guesswork, the study introduces a new attribute-based morphological test for identifying North American dice archaeologically.<\/p>\n