8.5 Bone with incisions – “counting stick”

The radial bone of a wolf with parallel engraved scratches was found by Karel Absolon in 1936. He interpreted it at the time as an aid to recording numbers – a “counting stick” and as such it has entered the history of mathematics.

Material: wolf bone

Dimensions (diameter): 18 cm

Exhibit type: copy of original (plaster)

Archaeological site: Dolní Věstonice I (Dolní Věstonice, Moravia)

Collection: Institute of Archaeology of the CAS, Brno v.v.i., Czech Republic

Along virtually its entire length, the bone is covered with short crosswise scratches: in the upper part are engraved 30 of them, 25 are lower down, with the thirtieth and the twenty-fifth scratch extended right across the width of the bone as if representing clear dividing markers.

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8.5 Bone with incisions – “counting stick”