From Middle Horizon cord-keeping to the rise of Inka khipus in the central Andes.

Res

earc

h

From Middle Horizon cord-keeping tothe rise of Inka khipus in the centralAndesGary Urton∗

Lima

N

0 km 500Recording devices formed of knotted cords,known as khipus, are a well-known featureof imperial administration among the Inkaof Andean South America. The originsand antecedents of this recording systemare, however, much less clearly documented.Important insights into that ancestry areoffered by a group of eight khipus dating fromthe later part of the Middle Horizon period(AD 600–1000), probably used by the pre-Inka Wari culture of the central Andes. Thisarticle reports the AMS dating of four of theseearly khipus. A feature of the Middle Horizonkhipus is the clustering of knots in groups offive, suggesting that they were produced by a

people with a base five number system. Later, Inka khipus were organised instead around a decimalplace-value system. Hence the Inka appear to have encountered the base five khipus among Waridescendant communities late in the Middle Horizon or early in the Late Intermediate period(AD 1000–1450), subsequently adapting them to a decimal system.

Keywords: South America, central Andes, Tiwanaku, Inka, Wari, Middle Horizon period,AD 600–1000, khipus

IntroductionSignificant advances have been made in recent decades in the study of Inka record-keepingby means of knotted-cord khipus during the Late Horizon period (c. AD 1450–1532),continuing through the colonial period and down into early modern times (see Urton 2003;Salomon 2004; Brokaw 2010). This article concerns the view in the opposite direction;specifically, the time period stretching from the Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) throughto the Late Intermediate period (AD 1000–1450). The latter period came to an end withthe emergence of the Inka state in the southern Peruvian highlands (Covey 2006). As will beshown, the strongest evidence for pre-Inka cord-keeping appears to pertain to the Middle

* Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA(Email: [email protected])

C© Antiquity Publications Ltd.ANTIQUITY 88 (2014): 205–221 http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/088/ant0880205.htm

205

From Middle Horizon cord-keeping to the rise of Inka khipus in the central Andes

Horizon Wari culture. In this article, I will describe and analyse what I will show to constitutea corpus of 17 Middle Horizon cord samples. Together, these samples display a sufficientlycomplex and homogeneous set of features to support the argument that they belong to atradition of cord-keeping from this period that was shared by a probably diverse group—of indeterminable size—of individuals who employed the cord technology for recordinginformation in the Wari state.

The Middle Horizon in central Andean prehistory was dominated by two large, expansivestates: Wari, in the central Andes, and Tiwanaku, in the south-central Andes.

Wari territory (or societies influenced by Wari) stretched from the northern highlands andnorthern coast of present-day Peru, southward to the Moquegua Valley and then eastward,into the highlands, to the region that would become the capital of the Inka empire, theCuzco Valley. Tiwanaku stretched from the southern boundary just delineated to the southand south-east, through the Titicaca basin and on down through present-day Bolivia andinto what is today central Chile. Wari and Tiwanaku co-existed for several centuries withlittle evidence of conflict between them but with a great deal of interaction and sharing ofvalues, ideology and material cultural traditions (see Isbell 2008).

Wari and Tiwanaku societies would have had need of administrative accountingtechnologies as these societies attained high levels of social, political and economicintegration and complexity. Accounting in such societies would have involved themanagement and oversight of state resources, including censuses and other administrativematters relating to conquered/subordinate populations, labour and military recruitment,storage and the redistribution of state goods (see Schreiber 1992: 29). These were allresources that were managed in the Inka empire by a complex administrative structurefor which the khipus served as the principal recording device. The question is: how wereadministrative accounts maintained in Middle Horizon times, in the Wari and Tiwanakustates? I must state at the outset that all of the evidence for pre-Inka accounting that isavailable to us pertains to sites within territory thought to have been controlled or influencedby the highland Wari polity. The cord-keeping terminology of the Tiwanaku region, whichwas primarily Puquina-speaking in the Middle Horizon period and Aymara-speaking inthe colonial period (Torero 2002; Cerron-Palomino 2008), centred on the device knownas the chino (see Platt 2002). Unfortunately, we have virtually no information about thecharacteristics of Tiwanaku chino, nor is it clear to what extent chino accounting technologymight have been an ancestral, descendant or parallel tradition to that in use in Wari territory.It is the tradition of cord-keeping in Wari territory that is the focus of this article.

Previous studies of Middle Horizon khipusThere has been a scant number of articles published to date pertaining to khipus thoughtto date to the Middle Horizon period. The most notable article is Conklin’s descriptionof 11 examples of what he referred to as “wrapped quipu” (1982: 267). These include a set ofnine examples in the Museo Amano, Lima, Peru, recovered by Yoshitaro Amano in 1968 atthe site of Pampa Blanca, near the Hacienda Huayuri, in the Santa Cruz Valley, a tributaryof the Nazca River, on the southern coast of Peru (Figure 1). These examples were recoveredalong with what are described as “Huari [Wari] pottery and a Huari mummy”. The potteryC© Antiquity Publications Ltd.

206

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

Figure 1. Khipu examples from Pampa Blanca, Santa Cruz Valley, Nazca River. Now in the Amano Museum, Lima, Peru(from Conklin 1982: fig. 6).

was of a type assigned to Middle Horizon 2, which suggests a date of c. AD 700 (Conklin1982: 267–68).

Conklin described three features that were characteristic of the collection of small khipusfrom Pampa Blanca: “[a] The shanks of the pendant cords are wrapped with patternedmulti-coloured thread; [b] there are no long knots present—only multiple so-called simple,or overhand knots; and [c] the plying of the cords is in the Z direction” (Conklin 1982:268). Spin/ply direction refers to the orientation of the twisted, oblique threads in a stringor cord. In Z-spun material, the oblique axis of the threads runs from upper right to lowerleft (as in a Z), while in S-spinning, the threads run obliquely from upper left to lower right(as in an S). Raw material is spun in one direction (Z or S), and two or more such threadsmay be united in a ply, which will be twisted in the opposite direction (respectively, S or Z).

Conklin went on to incorporate into the collection of wrapped khipus from the HaciendaHuayuri three examples from the collections of the American Museum of Natural History(AMNH; see Conklin 1982: figs. 7–9), as well as one other example from a private collection(Conklin 1982: figs. 11 & 12; see Figure 2). Conklin produced a detailed and highly valuabledescription and analysis—the only one performed to date—of the example from the privatecollection (Conklin 1982: 275–79).

The only other publication known to the author that documents a khipu of MiddleHorizon ancestry is an article by Ruth Shady Solıs, Joaquın Narvaez and Sonia Lopez(2000). In this study, Shady Solıs et al. describe the recovery in 1999 of a khipu from theHuaca San Marcos, one of the principal adobe mound constructions at the site of Maranga,in the lower Rimac Valley. The example was recovered from a sealed deposit in a passagewayin Platform 2 of the Huaca San Marcos. Material found at the same level and deposit as

C© Antiquity Publications Ltd.

207


Figure 2. Khipu, private collection (from Conklin 1982: fig. 12).

the khipu included sherds of the pottery styles known as Nieverıa, Lima 9 and Pachacamac,which are generally dated to the Lima culture (AD 200–750; Shady Solıs et al. 2000: 2–4;see Note 1 at the end of this article).

The Huaca San Marcos khipu (Figures 3 & 4) measured 118mm in length and bore 12pendant cords. Five of the pendants are Z-ply and seven are S-ply. Nine of the pendant cordsare cotton (as is the primary cord), while three are of camelid fibre. The primary cord hassections wrapped with narrow bands of blue, red and brown threads in a technique similarto the cord wrapping described by Conklin (1982).

Figure 3. Khipu from Huaca San Marcos, Rimac Valley,Lima, Peru (from Shady Solıs et al. 2000: fig. 1).

While no 14C dates were obtainedfor this example, Shady Solıs et al.(2000) conclude their discussion of thechronological placement of the Huaca SanMarcos khipu with the suggestion thatit probably dates to Epoch 2 of theMiddle Horizon period (AD 650–750).The suggested (relative) dating places thisexample chronologically at approximatelythe same time period as the relative datingof the examples discussed by Conklin.

To summarise what we have learnedabout supposed Middle Horizon khipus—all of which were dated by relative means—

up to this time, the following are the central features shared by these samples: a) cotton wasthe primary material of cord production; b) cords were wrapped in multiple, stacked bandsof multi-coloured, camelid fibre threads; c) a predominance of Z-plying (the exception beingthe Huaca San Marcos example, with its mixed plying directions); and d) the frequent use ofsimple, overhand knots (with no long or figure-of-eight knots; see discussion of Inka knottypes, below).

Expanding the corpus of Middle Horizon khipusThe data and studies outlined above represent the bulk of the investigations and publishedcommentary to date on pre-Inka cord-keeping in the Andes. Table 1 contains information onC© Antiquity Publications Ltd.

208

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

Figure 4. Drawing of khipu from Huaca San Marcos, Rimac Valley, Lima, Peru (after Shady Solıs et al. 2000: fig. 4).

Table 1. Radiocarbon dates of Middle Horizon khipus.

Sample Lab. no BP age δ13C 1σ calib. 2σ calib.

A) AMNH 41.2/7678a Beta-270948 1180+−40 22.1 AD 779–891 AD 716–971B) AMNH 41.2/7678b Beta-270949 1140+−40 22.8 AD 830–975 AD 779–987C) AMNH 41.2/7679 Beta-270950 1210+−40 22.5 AD 730–884 AD 687–937D) AMNH 41.2/7681 Beta-270951 1180+−40 23.3 AD 779–891 AD 716–971E) AMNH 41.2/6740 Beta-311352 1230+−30 ∗ AD 713–865 AD 689–882

Calibration: OxCal v.4.2.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2009); atmospheric data from IntCal09 (Reimer et al. 2009).∗ Sample too small for separate 13C:12C ratio and AMS analysis

five 14C dates obtained from several Middle Horizon khipus in the collection of the AMNH(briefly reviewed by Conklin 1982). I also discuss below two examples in the Museum ofWorld Cultures, in Gothenburg, Sweden, and one that was formerly in the collection ofthe Italian–Peruvian student of khipus, Carlos Radicati di Primeglio, and which is nowin the collections of the Museo Temple-Radicati (owned by San Marcos University), inLima. I suggest below that two basic types of khipu make up the Middle Horizon corpus:‘pendant’-type khipus and ‘loop-and-branch’-type khipus. Both of these types include cordwrapping as a central constructional feature.

My hypothesis is that Inka khipus may have emerged from the convergence of the twoMiddle Horizon khipu types discussed below, perhaps with additional influence from an


209


as-yet-to-be-defined (but see Urton 2013) tradition that moved Andean cord-keeping in thedirection of decimalisation (i.e. the recording of numerical values in a base-ten, place-valueknotting tradition). In other words, Inka khipus evolved from the merging of the primarycord + pendant cord (and simple subsidiary) tradition of the pendant khipu type with themultiple subsidiary loop-and-branch-type khipu. Both Middle Horizon types may bear asingle type of knot (i.e. not the three knot types of the Inka standard). I return to the matterof the evolution of Late Horizon Inka khipus from Middle Horizon and Late IntermediatePeriod antecedents below.

Pendant-type khipusThe basic characteristics of this type of khipu include a primary cord to which are attacheda variable number of pendant cords; the overall structural arrangement is not dissimilar tothat of Inka khipus. Middle Horizon pendant-type khipus are generally made of Z-pliedcotton with between four and eight stacked bands of multi-coloured camelid fibre threadswrapped around the upper portion of the pendant cords. While one end of this khipu typemay terminate in a loop, what distinguishes the loops in this type from the loop-and-branch-type khipu is that in the pendant type, the loop is attached to a primary cord to which thethread-wrapped pendant cords are attached, whereas in the loop-and-branch type, thread-wrapped pendant cords are attached directly to the loop. It is unclear to me whether ornot—and if so, how—this difference may have played into differences in recording strategiesbetween the two types of khipus.

AMNH 41.2/7678 (Figure 5; Table 1 A & B)This is one of the examples illustrated and briefly discussed in Conklin’s article (1982:

fig. 9). The sample lacks provenance. The khipu primary cord measures 1130mm in lengthand the 125 pendant cords measure between 150–180mm in length. The example isof cotton and the pendant cords are wrapped in stacked bands of camelid fibre threads ofdifferent colours. All but one of the pendant cords are Z-ply (as viewed in Figure 5, thefifty-fifth cord from the left is S-ply). None of the pendant cords bears knots. There are21 distinct cord types (as determined by colour patterning, thread-wrapping patterns, etc.),composed of between 1 and 15 examples each, that make up the 125 cords of this khipu.

In January 2010, samples from two cords of this khipu were radiocarbon dated by theBeta Analytic AMS laboratory in Miami, Florida. The results are shown in Table 1 (A andB). The calibrated dates (at 2σ ) for the first sample from this khipu (Table 1 A) fall betweenAD 716 and 971, and for the second cord sample (Table 1 B) between AD 779 and 987.Both sets of dates fall toward the later end of the range commonly used for the MiddleHorizon period (AD 600–1000).

AMNH 41.2/7679 (Figure 6; Table 1 C)This khipu was illustrated and briefly discussed earlier by Conklin (1982: fig. 8). The

length of the primary cord is 230mm. It should be noted that the loop at the left end of theprimary cord is attached to the primary cord itself, not directly to thread-wrapped pendantcords (as clarified above). The primary cord and all pendant and subsidiary cords are ofZ-plied cotton, and all 30 pendant cords bear stacked bands of multi-coloured camelidC© Antiquity Publications Ltd.

210

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

Figure 5. Pendant-type khipu; AMNH 41.2/7678 (photo by Gary Urton).


thread wrapping. Twenty-five of the pendant cords of this khipu bear a single subsidiary(secondary) cord, or multiple subsidiaries. Several of the subsidiary cords (but none of thependants) bear overhand knots.

A sample was taken from one cord of khipu AMNH 41.2/7679 for AMS dating at BetaAnalytic in 2010. The results are shown in Table 1 (C). The sample yielded a calibrateddate of AD 687–937 at 2σ . The sample appears to be more or less contemporaneous withthe previous sample, both falling toward the end of the Middle Horizon period.


211



It is important, in regards to the matter of their contemporaneity, to note that 21 of the 30cords of this khipu are identical to one or other of the 21 cord types found on the previouskhipu (Figure 5), whereas nine cord patterns on the khipu in Figure 6 are unique to thiskhipu. This suggests that the two khipus in Figures 5 and 6 were products of a shared cord-keeping tradition, which (as we will see below) probably included the next example as well.

AMNH 41.2/7681 (Figure 7; Table 1 D)The third khipu from the collections of the AMNH was again illustrated and briefly

discussed by Conklin (1982: fig. 7). The length of the primary cord is 1140mm; theprimary cord and all pendant cords are made of Z-plied cotton. The 18 pendant cords allbear stacked bands of camelid fibre thread wrapping, and all but one of the pendant cordsbear one brown cotton Z-plied subsidiary cord each. All but two of the cord patterns ofpendants on this example are shared with those on the khipus shown in Figures 5 and 6,which seems clearly to suggest that all three examples are products of the same cord-keepingtradition, perhaps even the work of the same cord keeper.

AMS dating of this khipu by Beta Analytic in 2010 (see Table 1 D) yielded a calendardate, at 2σ calibration, between AD 716 and 971. This is precisely the same range ofcalibrated dates as those obtained for AMNH 41.2/7678 (Figure 5) and very close to thosefor AMNH 41.2/7679. The contemporaneity and overlap in cord patterning of these firstthree examples suggest that they made up at least part of the archive of a highly skilledWari cord keeper, or perhaps a group of cord keepers who were in contact and sharingcord-making techniques and perhaps information with each other.

Loop-and-branch-type khipusWe turn now to consider what I term loop-and-branch-type khipus. One finds on theseexamples a looped cord configuration from which one or more thread-wrapped cords areC© Antiquity Publications Ltd.

212

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

suspended directly (i.e. the loop is not attached to a primary cord, which stands between theloop and the pendant cords, as in pendant-type khipus); the suspended cords bear multiple,branching subsidiaries. Both the cords and the subsidiaries may carry single overhand knots,which are in several cases configured in a cluster of five closely spaced knots. The cordsand subsidiaries of loop-and-branch-type khipus often bear thread wrapping, although thewrapping generally does not cover as much space along the cord as on pendant-type khipus.

AMNH 41.2/6740 (Figure 8; Table 1 E)This example is in the collection of the AMNH. The khipu has an elliptical loop from

which emerge three cords; or, we could say there are two transverse cords and one that

Figure 8. Loop-and-branch-type khipu; AMNH 41.2/6740 (photo by Gary Urton).

projects directly away from the loop. Thebodies of the three cords are integrated intothe cord construction of the loop. Eachof the three projecting cords bears multiplebranching, multi-coloured sub-cords andsubsidiaries. All but one of the cords andsubsidiaries of this example are of Z-pliedcotton. The upper sections of the centraland right side cords (as viewed in Figure 8)are wrapped with colourful camelid fibres.

The example in Figure 8 was submittedto Beta Analytic for AMS dating in 2011.The sample produced a calendar date, at 2σ

calibration, of AD 689–882 (Table 1 E).I am aware of three other examples

of loop-and-branch-type khipus that arequite similar to the one in Figure 8; theseare described below, as items F to H.Radiocarbon dates have not been obtainedfor these khipus.

F) Radicati khipu (Figure 9)This example is currently in the collections of the Museo Temple-Radicati, Lima, Peru,

and comes from the original collection of the late Italian-Peruvian khipu specialist, CarlosRadicati di Primeglio (2006). The khipu has a large loop to which are attached (in pendant-cord fashion) seven pendant cords, as well as a secondary loop which itself bears four pendantcords. All cords are of Z-plied cotton. The seven pendant-type cords all bear complex, multi-coloured camelid fibre thread wrapping in patterns similar to, yet distinct from, those onthe pendant khipu examples as well as those on the other loop-and-branch-type khipus.Several of the cords and subsidiaries bear between one and five overhand knots. The khipuis without provenance.

G) Gothenburg khipu 1 (Figure 10)This example, in the collections of the Museum of World Cultures, in Gothenburg,

Sweden, has a large loop to which are attached (in pendant-cord fashion) four pendant


213


Figure 9. Loop-and-branch-type khipu; Museo Temple-Radicati, Lima, Peru (photo by Gary Urton).

cords, two of which bear complex arrangements of subsidiaries. Three of the four pendantcords bear a cluster of five overhand knots while one cord bears six of these knots; manyof the subsidiaries bear multiple overhand knots as well. The four pendant cords also carrycamelid fibre thread-wrapping on the upper portion of the cords. The thread-wrappingpattern is distinct from any of those seen on the three pendant khipus discussed earlier. Boththis and the following example in Gothenburg are without provenance, and there are nodata that I was able to obtain concerning when or how the examples came into the museum’scollections.

H) Gothenburg khipu 2 (Figure 11)This example is built around a large loop to which a single cord is tied, in standard

pendant-cord attachment fashion. There are multiple subsidiaries of first and second order,most of which are of cotton (like the loop), but some of which are of dyed camelid fibres.All cords are Z-ply. There are two sections of thread wrapping, both in a pattern similar tothat on example G (above) and distinct from the earlier examples. The two thread-wrappedsections on this khipu divide the branches/subsidiaries into two separate sections. A fewcords carry clusters of up to five overhand knots.

DiscussionIf we include the nine small examples from the Museo Amano illustrated in Figure 1,then I argue that the corpus of Middle Horizon khipus known to date comprises17 examples. This would be the cord-keeping tradition—or ‘traditions’—that would


214

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

Figure 10. Loop-and-branch-type khipu (Gothenburgkhipu 1); Museum of World Cultures, Gothenburg, Sweden(photo by Gary Urton).

have been manipulated, transformed andinnovated on in various ways duringthe late Middle Horizon and the LateIntermediate periods, ultimately emergingas the tradition of knotted-cord record-keeping in the Inka empire. At this point,two questions are of central concern:what were the central features of cord-keeping during the Middle Horizon periodin the Andes? And second, what mighthave transpired over the course of Andeanprehistory that led to the transformation ofMiddle Horizon cord-keeping into the Inkastandard?

The principal characteristics ofMiddle Horizon khipus

As for the first question, the basiccomponents of Middle Horizon cordrecording devices are as follows: a) cordconstruction primarily of Z-ply whitecotton (see Note 2 at the end of this article);b) thread-wrapping in the form of fine,brightly dyed camelid-fibre threads wound

in stacked bands (generally between four and eight bands) around the upper or, in a fewcases, middle sections of cords; c) the sharing of thread-wrapping patterns among cordson pendant-type khipus but not on, or between, loop-and-branch-type samples; d) theincorporation of hierarchy—in the form of subsidiaries and branching—as a principle ofcord structure; and e) the knotting of cords with one to (commonly) five knots in a cluster.

By means of the various structural, visual (e.g. colour), and organisational features outlinedabove, the Middle Horizon khipus could have been employed for recording a wide rangeof information pertaining to multiple, hierarchically arrayed categories (i.e. sets of cordsbearing thread wrapping in different patterns; the branching structures of loop-and-branch-type khipus, etc.), as well as quantities in groupings up to (commonly) five units. I wouldadd that there is no reason to think that users of this knotting tradition could not haveapplied higher powers than one (i.e. unit value) to knots—for example, each knot couldhave been valued at, and multiplied by, five, ten, etc. The presence of this collection offeatures suggests that the Middle Horizon khipus would have served well as a device forrecording information generated within a hierarchical, state-level administrative structure,such as the Wari state. This discussion substantially supports the argument regarding thenature of and rationale for the use of cord-keeping in Wari contexts proposed earlier byBrokaw (2010).


215


The transformation or evolution of Wari khipus into Inka khipus

As for the changes and transformations that might, or must, have transpired in order forInka-style khipus to have evolved out of a Middle Horizon Wari prototype through perhaps

Figure 11. Loop-and-branch-type khipu (Gothenburgkhipu 2); Museum of World Cultures, Gothenburg,Sweden (photo by Gary Urton).

some intermediate steps, there are severalthings to take into account. Two of theprincipal changes would have been: a)a loss of colourful thread wrapping andits replacement in Inka examples by aproliferation of forms of incorporatingcolour differences on primary, pendant andsubsidiary cords (Inka khipus display solid-colour, barber-pole and mottled cords;colour changes down the length of a singlecord, etc.); and b) an explosion in theuse of knots, from the exclusive use ofsingle/overhand knots on Middle Horizonexamples to the three Inka knot types:single/overhand, figure-of-eight and longknots. This would also have involved atransformation in the value of the knotsthemselves. This was related to the Inkapractice of arranging knots in hierarchicaltiers, each level signalling a higher powerof ten as one moves from the bottom ofthe cords to the top. These latter featureswere the prerequisites for incorporating the

principle of ‘decimalisation’—that is, a base 10 place-value numeration system—into Inkacord accounting. The emergence of decimalisation in the Inka khipus from what appears tohave been a Wari foundation in what I would term ‘iteration’ (i.e. one knot + one knot =one thing + one thing = two) requires further clarification, beginning with a brief overviewof the main features of Inka khipus (see Conklin 2002; Urton & Brezine 2011).

Inka khipus are made of spun and plied cotton or camelid fibres; ply direction isoverwhelmingly (96 per cent) S-ply. The colours displayed in Inka khipus are the naturalcolours of cotton or camelid fibres, or of the dyeing of camelid fibres with natural dyes.The ‘backbone’ of an Inka khipu is the so-called primary cord to which are attached avariable number of thinner strings, called pendant cords. The average number of pendantson some 450 samples studied by the Harvard Khipu Database project is 84 cords. Aboutone quarter of all pendant cords have second-order cords, called subsidiaries, attached tothem. Subsidiaries may themselves bear subsidiaries, and so on, to as many as six levels ofsubsidiaries.

The majority of Inka khipus have knots tied into their pendant and subsidiary strings.The knots, which are of three distinct types (as described above), are usually tied in clusterson different levels in a decimal place system of numerical registry. I have sent some 20


216

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

presumed Inka samples for AMS dating and, in all but one case, the calibrated dates (for95% certainty) have fallen between c. AD 1460 and 1650 (see Cherkinsky & Urton inpress).

In considering how Middle Horizon khipus might have evolved into Inka khipus, itis critical to take account of the presence, or lack, of decimal numeration as a principleof recording in Middle Horizon samples. To repeat: Middle Horizon khipus display noevidence of a foundation in decimal numerical organisation. Rather, as we have seen above,many Middle Horizon examples bear single/overhand knots, and these are often arrangedin closely clustered groups of five knots (there are many single, or lone, knots as well). Thereis a suggestion of an interest in values from one to five in the Middle Horizon examples, butno evidence for decimal recording. On the other hand, the majority of Inka khipus wereorganised to a high degree around the recording of numerical values in decimal place-valuetiered hierarchical arrangements. This pair of observations prompts a question that maytake us to the heart of a critical transformation that occurred in the evolution from Wari toInka cord-keeping: to what degree were the principal languages spoken by the peoples whomost likely were the inventors, producers and users of these devices—Quechua, Aymaraand Puquina—based on decimal (as opposed to, for example, base five) numeration?

Quechua, Aymara and Puquina appear to have been the principal languages at playin the processes of cultural transformation and linguistic evolution and dispersals in thecentral and southern Andes over the period from the Middle Horizon through to the riseof the Inkas in the Late Horizon period (see Heggarty & Beresford-Jones 2012). Cerron-Palomino (2008) has argued persuasively that the Inkas probably originally spoke Puquina,the principal language spoken during Middle Horizon times at Tiwanaku, the place oforigin of the Inkas in myths widely recorded in the colonial period (Urton 1999). The Inkaswould have become increasingly prominent players in the Cuzco Valley from the end ofthe Middle Horizon and throughout the early Late Intermediate period—roughly aroundAD 900–1200. Establishing themselves in the valley, the Puquina-speaking ancestors of theInkas would have interacted with local remnant Wari peoples who would have been stillresident around the old Wari administrative centres, such as Pikillaqta and Huaro. Critically,Cerron-Palomino (2008) has argued that the Wari were Aymara-speaking peoples (see Note3 at the end of this article). In their interactions with local, remnant Wari peoples, the Inkaswould have adopted Aymara as their common language. In their subsequent expansionout of the Cuzco Valley, especially toward the north-west, the Inkas would increasinglyhave come into the territory of Quechua-speaking peoples of the central highlands andcoast, and they would have gradually adopted Quechua as their imperial lingua franca (seeCerron-Palomino 2008; Urton 2012).

Since one of the principal points of differentiation between Wari and Inka khipus is theabsence of evidence for decimal numeration in the former and the clear presence of sucha principle in the latter, the obvious question to ask is: was decimal numeration a featureof any or all of the three languages mentioned above? The Puquina, Quechua and Aymaranames for the numbers one to ten are shown in Table 2.

As seen in this table, both Puquina and Quechua have independent lexemes for thenumbers one to ten; both are decimal-based systems of numeration. As for Aymara,there are independent lexemes for the numbers one to five. The number six (suqta) is


217


Table 2. Number names in three Andean languages (spellings respectivelyafter Torero 2002: 448–56; Cusihuaman 1976; Briggs 1993).

Number Puquina (Cuzco) Quechua (Altiplano) Aymara

1 HUKSTU HOQ MAYA2 SO ISKAY PAYA3 CAPPA KINSA KIMSA4 SPER TAWA PUSI5 TACPA PISQA PISQA [QALLQU]∗

6 CHICHU SOQTA SUXTA7 STU QANCHIS PAQALLQU8 KINAS PUSAQ KIMSAQALLQU9 CHIQA ISQON LLATUNKA10 SCATA CHUNKA TUNKA

∗Paul Heggarty (2008) suggests that the original Aymara word for ‘five’ may have been qallqu.See online supplementary material in Heggarty 2008.

probably borrowed from Quechua (Cerron-Palomino pers. comm. 16 July 2009). As forthe numbers seven, eight and nine, these are compound terms, the first two of whichare based on additions to five (seven = two/paya + five/qallqu; eight = three/kimsa +five/qallqu). Nine is ‘almost’ (lla-) ten. Aymara appears to have originally had a quinary,or base five, system of numeration. As we have noted, there are numerous instances of theclustering of groups of five single knots in the Middle Horizon/Wari khipus, as illustratedabove; this may be a sign or expression of the base value of the Aymara numberingsystem.

From the information in Table 2, and in terms of our discussion of Middle Horizon/Wari(non-decimal/base five) and Inka (decimal) khipus, we could say that Puquina and Quechuanumeration are consistent with, or accommodate, the decimal numeration principle evidentin Inka khipus. On the other hand, if indeed the Middle Horizon khipus are Wari, andif Wari peoples spoke Aymara, then we could say that there is a coincidence in Wari cordtechnology of a base five terminological system and (perhaps) knotting technology.

From the above observations, I argue for the following construction in linking languagegroups to types of khipus within the context of the succession of archaeological cultures inthe central Andes in general, and within the Cuzco Valley in particular. First, I propose thatthe principal inventors of cord technologies for the recording of administrative informationwere Aymara-speaking Wari administrators from the Ayacucho Basin. The Wari records werebased on wrapping colourful camelid threads around cords in stacked bands and knottingcords with single/overhand knots, often in groups of five knots. Recording of administrativeinformation was performed by some means of signing values—still opaque to us—primarilyby means of colour coding. During the Late Intermediate period, Puquina-speaking peoples(that is, the Inkas, or their ancestors) began moving into the Cuzco region, replacing—ormerely following on from—the Wari. These Puquina speakers would have come into contactwith Wari/Aymara (non-decimal/perhaps base five) cord-keeping technology. As the stateapparatus of these Puquina-speaking Inkas became more formalised and complex, and asC© Antiquity Publications Ltd.

218

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

record-keeping became increasingly important to the expanding Inka polity, the Puquinawould have adopted and modified Wari/Aymara/non-decimal/base-five cord technology inthe direction of a strong principle of quantification, which they would have adapted to theirown tradition of decimal numeration.

From the Wari tradition, the early Inka cord keepers would have retained the complex,hierarchical cord structures as well as an interest in colour for organising and signingidentities and categories. In regard to colour, the Inkas abandoned the Wari practice ofwrapping cords in stacked bands of brightly dyed camelid fibres in favour of an expandeduse of colour in actual cord construction (e.g. solid, barber-pole and mottled cords). Perhapsthe reason for the later transformation was the desire to accommodate the expansionof knotting in hierarchical tiers (i.e. signalling increasing powers of ten). As the Inkasexpanded out of the Cuzco Basin, especially in their movement toward the west and north-west (i.e. toward Cuntisuyu and Chinchaysuyu), they would have come increasingly intocontact with Quechua-speaking peoples in these regions, who also used decimal numeration.Subsequently, and relatively late in the life of the Inka empire, decimal-based cord-keepingexpanded and became a pervasive feature of Inka administration. The fact that relativelyfew Wari khipus exist today as compared to Inka khipus may be the result of the destructionof Wari records by the Inka cord keepers.

ConclusionThe weakest portion of the hypothesis articulated in this article is the absence of a clearmechanism and/or process for the transformation and evolution of Middle Horizon cord-keeping into the Inka standard. In particular, I would point to the absence of an identityfor the peoples and/or cultures of the Late Intermediate period (c. AD 1000–1450) whowere responsible for influencing the shift from non-decimal/base-five accounting in theWari tradition to the decimal tradition of Inka accounting. My surmise (Urton 2013) isthat the dynamics of this transformation may have occurred in the interaction of earlyInka cord keepers with Quechua-speaking populations of the central coast and/or highlandsof Peru during the Late Intermediate period. Specifically, this interaction may have beenconcentrated in the region of the Rimac and Lurin valleys, where there were rich and diversetraditions of cord-keeping during what I have hypothesised to be Late Intermediate/LateHorizon times.

Finally, the hypothesis developed herein implies that wherever decimal-using Inkaadministrators came into contact with non-decimal/base-five-using peoples (e.g. theexpanding Aymara populations around and to the south of Lake Titicaca, in Collasuyu),there would have emerged the conditions for conflict in the form of disjunctions inadministrative organisations and cord-keeping practices and principles. Nonetheless, theInkas persisted in their efforts to implant decimal organisation in the political systemsof these (non-decimal/base five) Aymara populations of the region—until the Spanishinvasion. It is no small irony that the Spanish conquistadores were not only decimal-using peoples themselves, but also that they bore a recording technology—alphanumeric


219


writing—that rapidly superseded the khipu as the primary instrument for record-keepingin the Andes.

AcknowledgementsI express my appreciation to Carrie J. Brezine and Julia L. Meyerson for commenting on earlier drafts of thispaper. I also thank Bill Sillar and Sabine Hyland for their reviews and helpful suggestions on a later draft, whichgreatly improved the final text. I alone am responsible for any errors that remain. I gratefully acknowledgethe cooperation of the staff of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, for allowing me to takesamples from four Middle Horizon khipus for radiocarbon dating. Thanks to Dr Alexander Cherkinsky, ofthe Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia, for his advice and collaboration on theinterpretation of the AMS readings performed by the University of Georgia laboratory and Beta Analytic. TheKhipu Database Project has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (2006-07-BCS#0609719; 2011-12-BCS# 1111489). I express my deep appreciation to the NSF for its support of this project.

Notes

1) There is some confusion in the recounting of the circumstances of the recovery of this example in ShadySolıs et al. (2000). It appears that the deposit in which the khipu was found was excavated and removed fromits original location in the 1970s; however, no mention was made in the notes at that time of the discovery of akhipu. It was only in 1999, at the time of a re-excavation of the sector from which the deposit had earlier beenremoved, that the material from the earlier excavation was re-examined and the khipu was discovered. In theirdescription of their later (1999) excavations, Shady Solıs et al. state that the stratigraphic level from which theexample had earlier been removed was, in fact, sealed by later deposits.

2) Cotton is also much more common as a construction material in the surviving Inka khipu corpus.However, as Brezine and I have argued (Urton & Brezine 2011), this is probably due to the greater preservationof coastal examples, where cotton predominated, than in the highlands, where camelid fibre was more commonas a weaving material and where the preservation of fabrics was poor.

3) I would note that it is by no means universally accepted that the Wari spoke Aymara. The more common

language attributed to Wari peoples by linguists today is Quechua (see the various contributions on this matter

published in Heggarty & Beresford-Jones 2012). In my own analysis here and elsewhere (Urton 2012), I am

following the suggestions by Torero (2002) and Cerron-Palomino (2004), who both argue that the Wari spoke

Aymara. This remains a highly contested and controversial topic, which hopefully will gain greater clarity in the

years to come.

ReferencesBROKAW, G. 2010. A history of the khipu. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

BRIGGS, L.T. 1993. El idioma Aymara. La Paz: ILCA.

BRONK RAMSEY, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis ofradiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51: 337–60.

CERRON-PALOMINO, R. 2004. El Aimara como lenguaofficial de los Incas: identidad y transformacion enel Tawantinsuyu y en los Andes coloniales, in P.Kaulicke, G. Urton & I. Farrington (ed.)Perspectivas arqueologicas y etnohistoricas (Boletın deArqueologıa PUCP 8): 9–21. Lima: PontificiaUniversidad Catolica del Peru.

– 2008. Voces del Ande: ensayos sobre onomastica andina.Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru.

CHERKINSKY, A. & G. URTON. In press. Radiocarbonchronology of Andean khipus. Radiocarbon.

CONKLIN, W.J. 1982. The information system of theMiddle Horizon quipus, in A. Aveni & G. Urton(ed.) Ethnoastronomy and archaeoastronomy in theAmerican tropics (Annals of the New York Academyof Sciences 385): 261–81. New York: New YorkAcademy of Sciences.

– 2002. A khipu information string theory, in J. Quilter& G. Urton (ed.) Narrative threads: accounting andrecounting in Andean khipu: 53–86. Austin:University of Texas Press.

COVEY, R.A. 2006. How the Incas built their heartland:state formation and the innovation of imperialstrategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.


220

Res

earc

h

Gary Urton

CUSIHUAMAN, A. 1976. Gramatica QuechuaCuzco-Collao. Lima: Ministerio de Educacion &Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

HEGGARTY, P. 2008. Linguistics for archaeologists: acase-study in the Andes. Cambridge ArchaeologicalJournal 18: 35–56 (supplementary materialavailable at: http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/∼pah1003/loe/Eng/SupplInfo/2008Heggarty.htm(accessed 9 July 2013).

HEGGARTY, P. & D. BERESFORD-JONES. 2012.Archaeology and language in the Andes: across-disciplinary exploration of prehistory(Proceedings of the British Academy 173). London:British Academy & Oxford University Press.

ISBELL, W.H. 2008. Wari and Tiwanaku: internationalidentities in the central Andean Middle Horizon, inH. Silverman & W.H. Isbell (ed.) Handbook ofSouth American archaeology: 731–60. New York:Springer.

PLATT, T. 2002. ‘Without deceit or lies’: variable Chinureadings during a sixteenth-century tribute-restitution trial, in J. Quilter & G. Urton (ed.)Narrative threads: accounting and recounting inAndean khipu: 225–65. Austin: University of TexasPress.

RADICATI DI PRIMEGLIO, C. 2006. Estudios sobre losquipus. Translated and edited by G. Urton. Lima:Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

REIMER P.J., M.G.L. BAILLIE, E. BARD, A. BAYLISS, J.W.BECK, P.G. BLACKWELL, C. BRONK RAMSEY, C.E.BUCK, G.S. BURR, R.L. EDWARDS, M. FRIEDRICH,P.M. GROOTES, T.P. GUILDERSON, I. HAJDAS, T.J.HEATON, A.G. HOGG, K.A. HUGHEN, K.F. KAISER,B. KROMER, F.G. MCCORMAC, S.W. MANNING,R.W. REIMER, D.A. RICHARDS, J.R. SOUTHON, S.TALAMO, C.S.M. TURNEY, J. VAN DER PLICHT &C.E. WEYHENMEYER. 2009. IntCal09 andMarine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves,0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51: 1111–50.

SALOMON, F. 2004. The cord keepers: khipus and culturallife in a Peruvian village. Durham (NC) & London:Duke University Press.

SCHREIBER, K.J. 1992. Wari imperialism in MiddleHorizon Peru (Anthropological Papers of theMuseum of Anthropology 87). Ann Arbor:University of Michigan.

SHADY SOLIS, R., J. NARVAEZ & S. LOPEZ. 2000. Laantiguedad del uso del quipu como escritura: lasevidencias de la Huaca San Marcos. Boletın delMuseo de Arqueologıa y Antropologıa, UniversidadNacional Mayor de San Marcos 3(10): 2–23.

TORERO, A. 2002. Idiomas de los Andes: linguıstica ehistoria. Lima: Instituto Frances de EstudiosAndinos.

URTON, G. 1999. Inca myths. Austin: University ofTexas Press.

– 2003. Signs of the Inka khipu: binary coding in theAndean knotted-string records. Austin: University ofTexas Press.

– 2012. The herder-cultivator relationship as aparadigm for archaeological origins, linguisticdispersals and the evolution of record-keeping inthe Andes, in P. Heggarty & D. Beresford-Jones(ed.) Archaeology and language in the Andes: across-disciplinary exploration of prehistory(Proceedings of the British Academy 173): 321–43.London: British Academy & Oxford UniversityPress.

– 2013. Wari and Cajamarquilla administrativecord-keeping on the central coast of Peru. Paperpresented at the Society for American Archaeology78th Annual Meeting, Honolulu, 3–7 April 2013.

URTON, G. & C.J. BREZINE. 2011. Khipu typologies, inE.H. Boone & G. Urton (ed.) Their way of writing:scripts, signs and pictographies in pre-ColumbianAmerica: 319–52. Washington, D.C.: DumbartonOaks Research Library.

Received: 7 January 2013; Accepted: 5 March 2013; Revised: 22 March 2013


221

From Middle Horizon cord-keeping to the rise of Inka khipus in the central Andes.

Documents

Transcript of From Middle Horizon cord-keeping to the rise of Inka khipus in the central Andes.