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FORT COLLINS, COLORADO—People living in western North America more than 12,000 years ago played games of chance, according to a Live Science report. Robert Madden of Colorado State University identified and examined more than 600 sets of dice, or binary lots, recovered from 45 different archaeological sites in the western United States, on both sides of the Rocky Mountains. The artifacts date from 13,000 to 450 years ago. The objects can be either curved or flat, and are marked on one side while the other side is blank. Tossing a binary lot is similar to flipping a coin, Madden explained. “This is the first evidence we have of structured human engagement with the concepts of chance and randomness,” he said. Madden thinks these dice may have been used when people of different groups encountered each other and wanted to exchange goods or information. “It might have something to do with how separated these people are and the need to relate to people you don’t see very often,” he said. For example, people of the Folsom tradition, who made distinctive stone tools from flint and chalcedony, may have played games of chance when trading for valuable materials. “It’s a kind of leveling device that you see in a lot of cultures with egalitarian social structures,” Madden concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in American Antiquity. For more on North American hunter-gatherers who lived more than 10,000 years ago, go to "Ghost Tracks of White Sands."

https://archaeology.org/news/2026/04/03/12900-year-old-dice-identified-among-native-american-artifacts/

Before smartphones, before transistors, before written language, the Inca were running an information system. Scientists just proved their knotted cords can power spreadsheets, encryption, and file systems.

The Inca were, by any measure, a remarkable civilization. Rising to power from the Peruvian highlands, they built one of the most complex empires the Americas had ever seen, without a written language. What they had instead was the quipu: an arrangement of colored cords and knots that scholars have long believed served as a numerical record-keeping system.

https://indiandefencereview.com/thought-was-just-knots-scientists-say-inca-invented-worlds-first-computer-system/

In 1896, archaeologist Frank Hamilton Cushing led an excavation on Marco Island that uncovered the six-inch-tall Key Marco Cat along with thousands of other Calusa Indian artifacts. The excavation was one of the first formal, organized archaeological expeditions in the state.

In addition to the Key Marco Cat, Cushing’s team excavated vibrantly colored ceremonial masks and other carved objects, identifying the Calusa as one of the most artistic tribes to inhabit Florida prior to European contact.

“Because they lived in this very rich environment with the estuary system, the fish was plentiful, the shellfish was plentiful, so they didn’t spend any time worrying about food,” says Craig Woodward, director of the Marco Island Historical Museum.

“They were not an agricultural tribe, they were able to get food (from the water), and had plenty of time to devote to artistic things, which is fascinating to us today.”

The Calusa artifacts discovered on Marco Island date from 300 AD to 1500 AD, prior to European contact in Florida.

Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on the east coast of Florida and gave our state its name in 1513. When Ponce returned to southwest Florida in 1521, he was attacked by the Calusa and died from the wounds they inflicted.

Within about two centuries the Calusa were extinct, either having died from diseases brought by the Europeans, been captured as slaves, or been absorbed into the Seminole Tribe who arrived in Florida in the 1700s.

Created in 2010, the Marco Island Historical Museum is dedicated to remembering the Calusa. The museum campus was designed to have visitors walk through an interpretation of a Calusa village before they enter the museum.

“When you drive down the road, you look over and see a shell mound that’s been built, and we built an estuary system around the shell mound which lowers that area,” says Woodward. “We put cypress trees and native plants down there. Then on the shell mound you have a lagoon area which has a waterfall at one end and a fish weir at the other end, and a bridge crossing it to a chickee hut.”

The three large buildings of the museum complex are also designed to resemble a Calusa village. Taking a cue from Disney World, the museum designers used an extruded plastic product to create a thatched roof appearance, rather than actual palm fronds.

Woodward says that before visitors to the museum enter the main buildings, they walk from the present into the past.

“To get to the shell mound you have to cross the bridge from the parking lot, so you leave the modern world from the parking lot to the shell mound and enter a whole new world. We wanted to bring the inside out. So, unlike a regular museum where it’s all inside, a lot of our museum is outside, too.”

As visitors make their way through the village to enter the museum, they encounter a human size bronze sculpture of the Key Marco Cat, one of the most enduring symbols of the Calusa tribe. Inside the museum is a replica of original six-inch wooden figure.

“The Key Marco Cat is at the Smithsonian (in Washington, D.C.). It has come to Collier County twice,” says Woodward. “It was in Naples on display as a visiting item, and then it came to Marco Island. When it was at Marco, 18,000 people came to see it, so there’s a huge amount of interest in having it here.”

In an effort to have the Key Marco Cat permanently returned to the place it was found, the Marco Island Historical Museum contains a climate controlled cement structure with thick glass windows, specifically designed to house the unique artifact.

“The main part of the museum is dedicated to the Calusa, and hopefully, the items that we can get from that (Cushing) expedition,” says Woodward.

Some of the Calusa artifacts uncovered on Marco Island in 1896 are currently displayed at the British Museum in London, the University Museum of Philadelphia, and the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

https://myfloridahistory.org/frontiers/article/51

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With a wingspan of over ten feet, the Andean condor is one of the largest flying birds in the world. Artists, including those of the Moche culture on Peru’s North Coast, depicted this majestic creature in a variety of media. Its immense size and ability to tear away the flesh of its victims undoubtably placed this bird high in the Moche pantheon of powerful animals. Here, the metalsmith sculpted the form of a male condor (identified by the caruncle on the top of the beak) on the top of the handle of a tumi, a broad bladed ritual knife. This was then cast in copper using the lost-wax technique and various inlays were added, such as turquoise for the pupils of the eyes, and shell to indicate the patterning of the feathers.

The Moche (also known as the Mochicas) flourished between 200 and 900 CE, centuries before the rise of the Inca (Castillo, 2017). Over the course of some seven centuries the Moche built thriving regional centers from the Nepeña River Valley in the south to perhaps as far north as the Piura River, near the modern border with Ecuador, developing coastal deserts into rich farmlands and drawing upon the abundant maritime resources of the Pacific Ocean’s Humboldt Current. Although the exact nature of Moche political organization is a subject of scholarly debate—some believe it was a single, unified state, others suggest there were multiple polities—it is clear they shared unifying cultural traits such as religious practices (Donnan, 2010).

https://consulmex.sre.gob.mx/toronto/index.php/en/boletines-2017/5-cathcomprensa/comunicados-de-prensa-2011/179-maya-secrets

These figures represent individuals and were usually found in tombs of the nobility to ward off evil spirits.

Interestingly, some scholars and enthusiasts refer to these figures as “star gazers” due to their upward-facing gaze. This characteristic posture has led to various interpretations, suggesting that these figures might have had a spiritual or astronomical significance, possibly as guardians watching the celestial movements.

https://navajotimes.com/reznews/navajo-code-talker-john-kinsel-sr-passes-away-at-107/#google_vignette

Hi, I wanted to share a miniature I painted. It’s meant to represent an Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) warrior.

I did my best to approach it respectfully, but I understand this isn’t just a visual subject. If anything feels off or could be improved — I’m open to hearing it.

Thanks for taking a look.