New Study Says Oldest Dice Came From North America

JAKARTA - A new study says Native Americans were already familiar with dice and probability-based games about 12,000 years ago. According to a report by NBC News quoted on Monday, April 6, the findings published in the journal American Antiquity place the origin of the practice in the area that is now the southwestern United States, much earlier than similar evidence in Europe, Africa, or Asia.

This finding shakes the long-held notion that the ideas of chance, randomness, and dice games first developed in the Old World. The study's author, Robert Madden, a doctoral student at Colorado State University, drew that conclusion from long-scattered excavation reports.

"I don't find a new Native American dice. Just need someone to come along and wrap it up," Madden said, as quoted by NBC News.

Until now, the history of the dice of the Native Americans has generally been drawn back about 2,000 years. However, Madden found evidence of an even older one until the end of the last Ice Age. The dice were found in the first half of the 20th century at a number of Folsom cultural sites that are between 12,255 and 12,845 years old.

The dice are generally double-sided and made of bone or wood. The object is carefully shaped to produce random results, then marked or colored to distinguish its sides. Madden assessed the traces of the use of dice continued to appear in the southwest region of North America from 12,000 years ago until the time of contact with Europe, even continuing until now.

Still according to NBC News, Dartmouth University postdoctoral researcher Robert Wiener said the oral history of Native American communities also often includes gambling. In a number of stories in the southwest region, gambling is described as something that can get out of control, but also serves as a social and even religious event. In one Zuni community story, said Wiener, the gods also gamble.

No prehistoric dice have been found in eastern North America. The cause is uncertain, but it could be because the material in the region is more difficult to survive in archaeological records.

There are still many unanswered questions, including whether the players at the time had consciously calculated the probability. Even so, Madden believes that this finding shows that Native Americans have made complex calculations and may have been the first human group to grapple with the concept of chance in a more advanced form.

"What we're really seeing here is an intellectual achievement," Madden said.

This finding is also considered important because it reopens the intellectual side of the culture of the Native Americans who have been marginalized. Not only about the game, but also about how early humans understand opportunities, counting, and uncertainty.