News Paleontology

The oldest known dice date back about 12,000 years in North America

The findings extend the long record of precolonial Native American dice

An image of two sides of a die from early Native American cultures.

This two-sided die made of bone is one of the oldest examples of dice in the world. It dates to the Late Pleistocene (13,000 to 11,700 years old) and is from the Agate Basin archaeological site in Wyoming.

©Robert Madden

By Rebecca Dzombak

The oldest known dice in the world are roughly 12,000 years old and from western North America, a new study suggests.