The oldest known dice date back to around 3100 BCE in Scotland. While it’s possible the idea of dice was invented many millennia ago, it’s more likely that dice are an example of convergent invention and traveling news. Dice were likely invented and lost to the sands of time many times over at least the last 100,000 years.
The earliest known dice so far were bone dice found at the site of the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in Orkney, Scotland. They were used sometime between 3100 and 2400 BCE. The dice have been decorated with combinations of notches, grooves, and dots (pictured above). This settlement was buried in sand, thus preserving buildings and a range of everyday objects. The inhabitants used bone and antler as a raw material for a range of objects including shovels, awls, pins, knives, and even beads.
In the Mesopotamian region, the oldest known dice date back to around 3000 BCE. They were found in the Burnt City (Shahr-e Sukhteh) in Iran. These ancient dice were made from various materials like bone and stone, and they have been found in association with other early gaming artifacts.
Within four centuries, news of this entertainment traveled east 750 miles to the Indus Valley Civilization, navigating harsh landscapes, political, and social barriers. The Indus Valley dice date back to about 2600 BCE. The evidence suggests that dice were in wide use in multiple areas for at least centuries and likely for millennia. Either way, from here, news of dice would take about two millennia to reach distant places like China. Asian dice date back to about 600 BCE. It’s also possible that dice in China were invented separately as another example of convergent invention.
