The Andean Khipu and a Pre-Columbian Computer System: A Postcolonial Perspective

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For decades, researchers have strived to “elevate” khipus—Andean knotted cords—to the status of a writing system. However, this discourse is rooted in colonial frameworks for assessing cultural sophistication, which neglect the uniqueness of non-Western systems and obscure the richness of khipus. This paper challenges the conventional debate surrounding khipus and urges scholars to consider khipus as part of a computational system rather than a written one. While khipus have been compared to the binary encoding of computers, this analogy was used to show their potential to contain writing. Here the khipu system is directly compared to modern computers, arguing that they exist on a historical continuum of computational progress. This continuum has reduced the extent of human interaction required to store data, fulfill tasks, and make predictions; its culmination may soon be realized with the development of artificial intelligence, capable of functioning without any human input. This paper presents a novel perspective that khipus formed part of a malleable and modular computer system, inviting scholars to explore khipus as sophisticated tools for data processing and communication in Andean society. This framework fosters a more inclusive understanding of indigenous knowledge systems and challenges Eurocentric biases that have historically influenced archaeological discourse.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40380.0