A recent study from Colorado State University has revealed that hunter-gatherers of the western Great Plains crafted dice more than 12,000 years ago. This discovery predates previously known counterparts from the Old World by over 6,000 years.
The study's author, doctoral candidate Robert Madden, identified 659 artifacts (565 diagnostic and 94 probable) across 57 archaeological sites in 12 states. The oldest samples, dating back approximately 12,845 to 12,255 years, belong to the Folsom culture and were found in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, as reported in the journal American Antiquity.