China was not the only culture to attempt to divine the future through such a process.
The wikipedia entry, dealing with these objects seems fairly accurate (at least to the extent that we presently understand it), and says in part:
"While the use of bones in divination has been practiced almost globally, such divination involving fire or heat has generally been found in Asia and the Asian-derived North American cultures.[36] The use of heat to crack scapulae (pyro-scapulimancy) originated in ancient China, the earliest evidence of which extends back to the 4th millennium BCE, with archaeological finds from Liaoning, but these were not inscribed.[37] In Neolithic China at a variety of sites, the scapulae of cattle, sheep, pigs and deer used in pyromancy have been found,[38] and the practice appears to have become quite common by the end of the third millennium BCE. Scapulae were unearthed along with smaller numbers of pitless plastrons in the Nánguānwài (南關外) stage at Zhengzhou, Henan; scapulae as well as smaller numbers of plastrons with chiseled pits were also discovered in the Lower and Upper Erligang stages.[39]
David Keightley's books may also be helpful:
- Keightley, David N. (1978). Sources of Shang history : the oracle-bone inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02969-0.; Paperback 2nd edition (1985) ISBN 0-520-05455-5.
- Keightley, David N. (2000). The ancestral landscape: time, space, and community in late Shang China, ca. 1200-1045 B.C (2nd print. ed.). Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-070-9.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone