Formal discussions on inference date back to Arab mathematicians and cryptographers, during the Islamic Golden Age between the 8th and 13th centuries. Al-Khalil (717–786) wrote the Book of Cryptographic Messages, which contains one of the first uses of permutations and combinations, to list all possible Arabic words with and without vowels. Al-Kindi's Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages gave a detailed description of how to use frequency analysis to decipher encrypted messages, providing an early example of statistical inference for decoding. Ibn Adlan (1187–1268) later made an important contribution on the use of sample size in frequency analysis.

The earliest writing containing statistics in Europe dates back to 1663, with the publication of Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality by John Graunt. Early applications of statistical thinking revolved around the needs of states to base policy on demographic and economic data, hence its stat- etymology. The scope of the discipline of statistics broadened in the early 19th century to include the collection and analysis of data in general. Today, statistics is widely employed in government, business, and natural and social sciences.
Given this reference text about the history of statistics, what was the earliest publican of writing on statistics?
The earliest publication containing statistics is Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills or Mortality by John Graunt.