The Mysterious Origin and Strange Descent of Chess

The author explores a fascinating and provocative thesis he calls the mancala hypothesis: While early Chinese chess (Liubo and Xiangxi) played a pivotal role in the evolution of chess, its role was intermediate and secondary. The inventive momentum for chess originated in Africa, the author contends, perhaps 72,000 years ago on repeated cycles of inventive evolutionary drift and mutation. Basing this hypothesis on the out-of-Africa theory now gaining widespread acceptance, the author constructs a Nash equilibrium model of invention to estimate the speed of the inventive drift. Descent from throw sticks, mancala and Senet into their modern forms (I-Ching, modern chess and dice) coincided with the continuous migration of Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam’s near and distant cousins out of Africa and the criss-crossing paths of their descendant’s returning back flow out of China thru India to Europe. The diffusion window: Trade routes for the movement of weapons, supplies and chess boards running parallel to and, in some cases, overlaying the migratory paths of homo sapiens leaving Africa tens of thousands of years before. Innovative changes to chess piece imagery and rules were randomly transmitted back and forth along these paths.