Prehistorical attempts of accounting in the Magura Cave, present day Bulgaria

Abstract

The history of accounting can be traced back to thousands of years B.C. In this paper we argue that recently found drawings in an ancient cave called Magura near the city of Vidin in Bulgaria, could also be included as part of the prehistorical uses of accounting. In the past, this cave has been subject to many explorations and some of the ancient drawings found there have been dated back to almost 40 thousand years B.C. Based on our analysis, we believe with a certain level of confidence that some of the drawings found in the cave Magura are depiction economic events and subsequently a stock owned by people at a certain time. As a result of these findings, we assert that prehistorical attempts of accounting existed at the time of the drawings were made and therefore these findings should have significant inclusion into the history of accounting.