Africa Mother of Mathematics

[franksterr]

Lebombo Bone (35,000 BC)

The oldest mathematical instrument is the Lebombo bone, a baboon fibula used as a measuring device and so named for its location of discovery in the Lebombo mountains of Swaziland. The device is at least 35,000 years old. Judging from its 29 distinct markings, it could have been used to either track menstrual or lunar cycles, or used merely as a measuring stick.

It is rather interesting to note the significance of the 29 markings (roughly the same number as lunar cycle, i.e., 29.531 days) on the baboon fibula because it is the oldest indication that the baboon, a primate indigenous to Africa, was symbolically linked to Khonsu, who was also associated with time. The Kemetic god, Djehuty ("Tehuti" or "Toth"), was later depicted as a baboon (also an ibis), and is usually associated with the moon, math, writing and science. Use of baboon bones as mathematical devices has been continuous throughout all of Africa, suggesting Africans always held the baboon as sacred and associated with the moon, math, and time.
http://www.taneter.org/math.html

[kia027]

Yes

Africans used the concept of fractals when building their villages naturally

[Blackstar*]

See the Ishango Bone thread too: link

[Blackstar*]

Yes

Africans used the concept of fractals when building their villages naturally

[Blackstar*]

[franksterr]

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1. The drawing tradition of the Tchokwe

The Tchokwe people (or Quiocos), with a population of about one million, predominantly inhabit the northeast of Angola, the Lunda region. Traditionally they are hunters, but since the middle of the 17th century they have dedicated themselves also to agriculture. The Tchokwe are well known for their beautiful decorative art, ranging from the ornamentation of plaited mats and baskets, iron work, ceramics, engraved calebash fruits and tattooings, to paintings on house walls and sand drawings.
When the Tchokwe meet at their central village places or at their hunting camps, they are used, sitting around a fire or in the shadow of leafy trees, to spend their time in conversations that are illustrated by drawings (lusona, pl. sona) on the ground. Most of these drawings belong to a long tradition. They refer to proverbs, fables, games, riddles, animals, etc. and play an important role in the transmission of knowledge and wisdom from one generation to the next. The designs have to be executed smoothly and continuously as any hesitation or stopping on the part of the drawer is interpreted by the audience as an imperfection and lack of knowledge, and assented to with an ironic smile [Fontinha, 1983].
In order to facilitate the memorisation of their standardised picto- and ideograms, the "akwa kuta sona"--drawing experts--invented an interesting mnemonic device. After cleaning and smoothing the ground, they first set out with their fingertips an orthogonal net of equidistant points. The number of rows and columns depends on the motif to be represented. For example, in order to represent the marks left on the ground by a chicken when it is chased, one needs five rows of six points [See Figure 1; Santos, 1961, p. 48]. By applying their method--an example of an early use of a coordinate system [cf.Santos, 1960, p. 267]--the "akwa kuta sona" reduce the memorisation of a whole lusona to that of mostly two numbers and a geometric algorithm.
2. Analysis and reconstruction of mathematical elements

The sona tradition has been vanishing: "What we find today is probably only the remnant, becoming more and more obsolete, of a once amazingly rich and varied repertoire of symbols" [Kubik, 1987, p. 59]. For some years I studied those sona that have been reported in the ethnographical [especially Hamelberger, 1952; Santos. 1961: Fontinha, 1983; Kubik, 1987] and ethnomathematical literature [Zaslavsky. 1973; Ascher. 1988] and, on the basis of a systematic analysis of (implicit) cultural values, l succeeded in reconstructing important mathematical elements of the sona tradition. The first results are published in Gerdes [1989c]2.1 Symmetries and monolinearity
Most sona display bilateral, double bilateral or rotational symmetries (see the examples in Figure 2). Many sona are monolinear, i.e. they are composed of only one closed, smooth line. In the aforementioned study I showed that some of the reported sonamade out of two or more superimposed closed paths are in fact "degraded" versions of originally monolinear patterns. The probably original sona have been reconstructed (cf. my analysis of the Tamil drawing tradition in South India that is technically related to the Tchokwe tradition. Gerdes [1989a]). Figure 3 gives an example. This lusona represents a lioness with two cubs. The reconstructed original is monolinear (when one does not take into account the tails, which are drawn afterwards).
2.2 Classes and geometrical algorithms
The sona may be classified in accordance with the kind of geometrical algorithm that has been used to draw them. For example, all sona in Figure 4 belong to the same class as the reconstructed lusona in Figure 3b. The drawings in Figure 5 belong to the same class as the pictogram in Figure 1. These sona may be called extensions of the one in Figure 1. By varying the dimensions (but not arbitrarily, as not all dimensions satisfy!) of the point reference frames and by applying the same geometrical algorithm, the "akwa kuta sona" obtained many such extensions. Figure 6 displays the algorithm used in the case of the marks left on the ground by a chicken when it is chased.

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4273355/FID840/EQTYRES/erg/111361/1361.htm