Native Americans had dice 12,000 years ago (nbcnews.com)

A study published in *American Antiquity* argues that Native Americans in the present-day U.S. Southwest were using dice and playing probability-based games as early as about 12,000 years ago. The research, compiled from archaeological site reports, suggests the practice predates similar evidence in Europe, Africa, and Asia by thousands of years. The article also notes that oral histories and later written accounts describe gambling as both social and sometimes religious, though it’s unclear whether prehistoric players calculated formal probabilities.