The rise of computer graphics has made fractals much more common in the past 30 years, but human-made fractals existed far before the birth of computers. Anthropologists have observed that many indigenous African socities created fractals in their architecture, textiles, sculpture, art and religion. This was not simply unconscious or intuitive, as Africans linked these designs to concepts such as recursion and scaling.

Why did Africans focus so much on fractal designs while other groups did more with Euclidian geometry? Every culture makes use of certain geometric design themes. Native Americans, for example, made four-fold symmetry central to their designs. The African focus on fractals emphasizes their own cultural priorities: it can even be heard in their polyrhythmic music (similar simultaneous rhythms at different scales).