Tally stick (Lebombo bone)
Palo de cuentas (hueso de Lebombo)
- Date
- c. 43 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Border Cave, Lebombo Mountains, South Africa–Eswatini border
- Credited to
- Homo sapiens
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A baboon fibula with 29 parallel notches, interpreted as a counting record (perhaps lunar or menstrual). The oldest known accounting artefact.
The bone is broken and may have had more notches; its numerical function is a reasonable but unprovable hypothesis.
What it led to
- Externalising quantity: numerical memory outside the brain
- One-to-one correspondence: the cognitive basis of arithmetic
- Recording of temporal cycles: the calendar
Built on
- Abstract geometric engraving on ochrec. 75 ka
- Abstract geometric engraving on ochre
Made possible
- Engraved lunar calendar (Abri Blanchard plaque)c. 32 ka
- Ishango bonec. 20000 BCE
- Engraved lunar calendar (Abri Blanchard plaque)
- Ishango bone