Carving a Tally Stick — Humanity's Oldest Record-Keeping Technology

A tally stick is a piece of bone or wood into which notches are cut to record quantities — one of the earliest information technologies ever invented. The oldest known tally is the Lebombo bone from South Africa, a baboon fibula with 29 notches dating to approximately 43,000 years ago, likely tracking a lunar cycle. The Ishango bone from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (approximately 20,000 years old) shows grouped notch patterns that may represent prime numbers or a six-month lunar calendar. These are not primitive scratches — they represent the birth of abstract numerical thinking, the ability to encode quantity into a physical medium and retrieve it later. Tally sticks served countless practical purposes: counting game killed, days elapsed, trade debts owed, livestock owned, and seasonal cycles. The split tally took this further — a notched stick split lengthwise creates two matching halves, each held by one party to a transaction. Neither half can be forged because the notches on both pieces must align perfectly when rejoined. This system was so reliable that the English Exchequer used split tallies as official financial records from the 12th century until 1826. This blueprint teaches the craft of carving tally sticks using prehistoric tools, including simple counting tallies, grouped tallies for larger numbers, and the split-tally system for two-party records.