well Africa being credited with another contribution to science CNN's Patricia Kelly talked with researchers who have evidence that 20,000 years ago before the Pharaohs of Egypt another African civilization produced a sophisticated calculator proof that primitive man was well acquainted with mathematics lies under lock and key in the dusty archives on the 19th floor of Belgium's Royal Institute of Natural Science best described as a prehistoric calculator it's a piece of animal bone just 10 cm long about 4 in discovered in the 1950s by a leading Belgian archaeologist the bone was found near Lake Edward at ishango on the border between the Congo and Rwanda what sets the bone apart from the other fossils and fragments found at isango are its markings groups of notches arranged in three distinct columns they are very very well organized they are not made at random if though if you you can make Notches at random just to count how many animals you have killed today or something like that but it's rather well organized when The Notches are counted a series of number sequences emerges they suggest a number system based on 10 another based on 12 as well as a knowledge of multiplication and of prime numbers this is a replica of the bone it's thought this piece of quartz at the tip may have been used for writing or Engraving the asango bone may also be proof that a highly Advanced civilization existed in central Africa 15,000 years before the emergence of Egyptian culture Homo sapiens May therefore have evolved in central Africa before anywhere else in the world we have more and more proofs of mathematical activities in Africa not written but on stones on Bones on strings so indeed there are more reasons to think that it's the start of it's the very first mathematical activity and to my well in my view of course it's even it should not be on the 19th floor it should be on a golden table at the entrance of the museum It's s Shango man's numers system may have spread North following the River Nile into Egypt as well as into West Africa now his influence May travel even further this award-winning film director wants to take the bone into space and make a documentary about it I want to make a link uh uh between the history the the history of Africa and the future of the mankind with the help of the European Space Agency he's already taken the bone on a practice parabolic flight in zero gravity the project is a deliberate illusion to the opening scenes from Stanley Kubrick's classic science fiction film 20 2001 A Space Odyssey 50 years after the asango bone was found and stuffed away in a drawer it could be blasted into outer space turning science fiction into fact that could happen even before it goes on public display here on Earth Patricia Kelly CNN br