Science and Technology in Africa - Mathematics

Mathematics

The Lebombo bone is the oldest known mathematical artifact. It dates from 35,000 BCE and consists of 29 distinct notches that were deliberately cut into a baboon's fibula.

The Ishango bone is a bone tool, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era, about 18,000 to 20,000 BCE. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving or writing. It was first thought to be a tally stick, as it has a series of tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool, but some scientists have suggested that the groupings of notches indicate a mathematical understanding that goes beyond counting. These are the function postulated about the Ishango bones: 1. A tool for multiplication, division, and simple mathematical calculation; 2. A six-month lunar calendar; 3. a construct of a woman, keeping track of her menstrual cycle;

In the book How Mathematics Happened: the First 50,000 Years, Peter Rudman argues that the development of the concept of prime numbers could only have come about after the concept of division, which he dates to after 10,000 BC, with prime numbers probably not being understood until about 500 BC. He also writes that "no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10." see History of mathematics