History of Mathematics

Syllabus

http://faculty.millikin.edu/~jrauff/ma320(06).htm

Links

http://faculty.millikin.edu/~jrauff/malink.html

The bone owes its name to the site where it was discovered.

Ishango is in Congo, only 15 km far from of the Equator, on bank of the Edward lake. This large African lake, one of the sources of the Nile, is 77 km long and 42 km broad.

The area is close to the Virunga National park and the border Congo - Uganda.

In the surroundings, the eternal snow of Ruwenzori culminates to 5.109 m.

Ishango Bone

Ishango Bone: 20,000 BC

The Ishango Bone now lies at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels, and has been dated to around 20,000 BC. http://www.

naturalsciences.be/common/movies/ishango/

ishango_m.mov

The Lebombo bone is the oldest known mathematical artifact.

It dates from35000 BC and consists of 29 distinct notches that were deliberately cut into a baboon's fibula.

It was discovered within a cave in the Lebombo mountains of Swaziland.