Native American Gaming Pieces and "Dice" Shed Light on Promentory Culture in Utah

For the curious, please check out Stewart Culin's "Games of the North American Indians," a wonderful resource that is now available online (Holy Hathor!) It is a treasure trove of information gathered by Culin on various games and sports played by North American Indians including extensive drawings, oral traditions, and testimonies of various old-timers and collectors of gaming artifacts alive at the time Culin was traveling the North American continent collecting his information.

Article at Westerndigs.org

Hundreds of Dice, Game Pieces Found in Utah Cave Shed Light on Prehistoric Gambling

POSTED BY BLAKE DE PASTINO ON MAY 18, 2015 

A cave on the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake is giving archaeologists a rare glimpse into a seldom-studied aspect of life in the ancient West — prehistoric gambling.

Researchers exploring the cave, known simply as Cave 1, have identified hundreds of dice, hoops, carved sticks and other trinkets used in indigenous games of chance and skill.  Based on what they’ve found so far, they project that there are more than 10,000 such items still waiting to be uncovered, making it likely the largest deposit of ancient gambling artifacts ever found in the western U.S.

Excavations have revealed hundreds of gaming pieces, including these split-cane dice
and split sticks, which were used in dice and guessing games, archaeologists say.
(Photo courtesy Ives and Yanicki)

And it’s only part of the peculiar bounty that archaeologists have uncovered there.  Since the 1930s, Cave 1 has proven to hold a profusion of artifacts — including piles of butchered bison and elk bones and hundreds of moccasins, fashioned mostly for children — most of which date to a span of just 20 to 40 years in the late 13th century.