Definition:Lebombo Bone
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Definition
The Lebombo bone is a baboon's leg bone bearing $29$ notches which were carved into it between $33 \ 000$ B.C.E. and $42 \ 000$ B.C.E.
It is the earliest known instance of a system of tally marks.
It was found in Border Cave in South Africa in the Lebombo mountains, near the border with Swaziland.
Various untestable hypotheses have been raised concerning this artefact, notably that it was created by an early African woman to count the days between her menses. However, as the bone appears to be broken at one end, it is possible that the count of $29$ is not the complete set of notches that were originally carved.
Also see
Sources
- 2005: Clifford A. Pickover: A Passion for Mathematics ... (next): Numbers, History, Society, and People: Ancient counting
- 2008: Ian Stewart: Taming the Infinite ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $1$: Tokens, Tallies and Tablets: Tally marks