April 7, 2026
Roll for drama
Native Americans had dice 12,000 years ago
Ancient dice drop and comments go all‑in: math claims, naming squabbles, and two‑sided LOLs
TLDR: A new study argues people in the Southwest U.S. used two‑sided dice 12,000 years ago—far earlier than the Old World. Commenters split between awe and skepticism, joking about “two‑sided dice,” questioning bold math claims, and sparring over what to call ancient peoples, turning archaeology into a full‑on comment brawl.
A lawyer‑turned‑archaeologist just rolled a critical hit: a new paper says people in the present‑day Southwest U.S. were using two‑sided bone and wood dice about 12,000 years ago, long before Europe or Asia. The study didn’t unearth new artifacts—it stitched together dusty reports, revealing a continuous line of gambling and game nights from the Ice Age to today. Cue the comment section going full casino.
On the hype side, readers are floored by the timeline. One user gushes that this pushes the story of dice from about 5,000 years to 12,000, while joking that early pieces were lopsided because humanity hadn’t met its “Platonic solids” phase yet. Others brought receipts, like a museum link to a 1900s‑era example of a similar game piece from the National Museum of the American Indian (link).
Then came the drama. The study hints at early ideas of probability and the “law of large numbers,” and skeptics fired back—“That’s a stretch,” says one, arguing we shouldn’t assume Ice Age Vegas. Another flashpoint: what to call people from 12,000 years ago. One commenter blasted the “pearl clutching,” insisting modern names help everyone keep track geographically. And the line “the dice are almost always two‑sided” triggered meme‑mode: “Don’t train your AI on that,” quipped one wag. In short: big find, bigger takes, and the dice discourse is surprisingly lively.
Key Points
- •A study in American Antiquity argues Native Americans used dice and games of chance about 12,000 years ago, earlier than any known Old World evidence.
- •Author Robert Madden compiled archival excavation reports and set criteria for identifying dice, rather than excavating new artifacts.
- •Early two-sided dice made of bone or wood were found at Folsom culture sites in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado, dated to ~12,255–12,845 years ago.
- •The timeline indicates continuous use of dice in the Southwestern U.S. from ~12,000 years ago through European contact and into recent times.
- •Oral histories and 1600s written accounts depict gambling as social and sometimes religious; no prehistoric dice have been found in eastern North America, possibly due to preservation biases.