Gary Urton

Recording devices formed of knotted cords, known as khipus, are a well-known feature of imperial administration among the Inka N of Andean South America. The origins and antecedents of this recording system are, however, much less clearly documented. Important insights into that ancestry are offered by a group of eight khipus dating from the later part of the Middle Horizon period (AD 6001000), probably used by the preLima Inka Wari culture of the central Andes. This article reports the AMS dating of four of these early khipus. A feature of the Middle Horizon khipus is the clustering of knots in groups of ve, suggesting that they were produced by a people with a base ve number system. Later, Inka khipus were organised instead around a decimal place-value system. Hence the Inka appear to have encountered the base ve khipus among Wari descendant communities late in the Middle Horizon or early in the Late Intermediate period (AD 10001450), subsequently adapting them to a decimal system.
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Keywords: South America, central Andes, Tiwanaku, Inka, Wari, Middle Horizon period, AD 6001000, khipus

Introduction
Signicant advances have been made in recent decades in the study of Inka record-keeping by means of knotted-cord khipus during the Late Horizon period (c. AD 14501532), 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; specically, the time period stretching from the Middle Horizon (AD 6001000) through to the Late Intermediate period (AD 10001450). The latter period came to an end with the emergence of the Inka state in the southern Peruvian highlands (Covey 2006). As will be shown, the strongest evidence for pre-Inka cord-keeping appears to pertain to the Middle
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Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA (Email: gurton@fas.harvard.edu)
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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 constitute a corpus of 17 Middle Horizon cord samples. Together, these samples display a sufciently complex and homogeneous set of features to support the argument that they belong to a tradition of cord-keeping from this period that was shared by a probably diverse group of indeterminable sizeof individuals who employed the cord technology for recording information in the Wari state. The Middle Horizon in central Andean prehistory was dominated by two large, expansive states: Wari, in the central Andes, and Tiwanaku, in the south-central Andes. Wari territory (or societies inuenced by Wari) stretched from the northern highlands and northern 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, the Cuzco Valley. Tiwanaku stretched from the southern boundary just delineated to the south and south-east, through the Titicaca basin and on down through present-day Bolivia and into what is today central Chile. Wari and Tiwanaku co-existed for several centuries with little evidence of conict between them but with a great deal of interaction and sharing of values, ideology and material cultural traditions (see Isbell 2008). Wari and Tiwanaku societies would have had need of administrative accounting technologies as these societies attained high levels of social, political and economic integration and complexity. Accounting in such societies would have involved the management and oversight of state resources, including censuses and other administrative matters relating to conquered/subordinate populations, labour and military recruitment, storage and the redistribution of state goods (see Schreiber 1992: 29). These were all resources that were managed in the Inka empire by a complex administrative structure for which the khipus served as the principal recording device. The question is: how were administrative accounts maintained in Middle Horizon times, in the Wari and Tiwanaku states? I must state at the outset that all of the evidence for pre-Inka accounting that is available to us pertains to sites within territory thought to have been controlled or inuenced by the highland Wari polity. The cord-keeping terminology of the Tiwanaku region, which was primarily Puquina-speaking in the Middle Horizon period and Aymara-speaking in the colonial period (Torero 2002; Cerr on-Palomino 2008), centred on the device known as the chino (see Platt 2002). Unfortunately, we have virtually no information about the characteristics of Tiwanaku chino, nor is it clear to what extent chino accounting technology might 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 khipus

There has been a scant number of articles published to date pertaining to khipus thought to date to the Middle Horizon period. The most notable article is Conklins description of 11 examples of what he referred to as wrapped quipu (1982: 267). These include a set of nine examples in the Museo Amano, Lima, Peru, recovered by Yoshitaro Amano in 1968 at the site of Pampa Blanca, near the Hacienda Huayuri, in the Santa Cruz Valley, a tributary of the Nazca River, on the southern coast of Peru (Figure 1). These examples were recovered along with what are described as Huari [Wari] pottery and a Huari mummy. The pottery
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Figure 1. Khipu examples from Pampa Blanca, Santa Cruz Valley, Nazca River. Now in the Amano Museum, Lima, Peru (from Conklin 1982: g. 6).

was of a type assigned to Middle Horizon 2, which suggests a date of c. AD 700 (Conklin 1982: 26768). Conklin described three features that were characteristic of the collection of small khipus from Pampa Blanca: [a] The shanks of the pendant cords are wrapped with patterned multi-coloured thread; [b] there are no long knots presentonly 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 string or cord. In Z-spun material, the oblique axis of the threads runs from upper right to lower left (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 threads may 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 Hacienda Huayuri three examples from the collections of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH; see Conklin 1982: gs. 79), as well as one other example from a private collection (Conklin 1982: gs. 11 & 12; see Figure 2). Conklin produced a detailed and highly valuable description and analysisthe only one performed to dateof the example from the private collection (Conklin 1982: 27579). The only other publication known to the author that documents a khipu of Middle Horizon ancestry is an article by Ruth Shady Sol s, Joaqu n Narv aez and Sonia L opez (2000). In this study, Shady Sol s et al. describe the recovery in 1999 of a khipu from the Huaca 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 passageway in Platform 2 of the Huaca San Marcos. Material found at the same level and deposit as
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Figure 2. Khipu, private collection (from Conklin 1982: g. 12).

the khipu included sherds of the pottery styles known as Niever a, Lima 9 and Pachacamac, which are generally dated to the Lima culture (AD 200750; Shady Sol s et al. 2000: 24; see Note 1 at the end of this article). The Huaca San Marcos khipu (Figures 3 & 4) measured 118mm in length and bore 12 pendant cords. Five of the pendants are Z-ply and seven are S-ply. Nine of the pendant cords are cotton (as is the primary cord), while three are of camelid bre. The primary cord has sections wrapped with narrow bands of blue, red and brown threads in a technique similar to the cord wrapping described by Conklin (1982). While no 14 C dates were obtained for this example, Shady Sol s et al. (2000) conclude their discussion of the chronological placement of the Huaca San Marcos khipu with the suggestion that it probably dates to Epoch 2 of the Middle Horizon period (AD 650750). The suggested (relative) dating places this example chronologically at approximately the same time period as the relative dating of the examples discussed by Conklin. To summarise what we have learned Figure 3. Khipu from Huaca San Marcos, Rimac Valley, about supposed Middle Horizon khipus Lima, Peru (from Shady Sol s et al. 2000: g. 1). all of which were dated by relative means up to this time, the following are the central features shared by these samples: a) cotton was the primary material of cord production; b) cords were wrapped in multiple, stacked bands of multi-coloured, camelid bre threads; c) a predominance of Z-plying (the exception being the Huaca San Marcos example, with its mixed plying directions); and d) the frequent use of simple, overhand knots (with no long or gure-of-eight knots; see discussion of Inka knot types, below).

Expanding the corpus of Middle Horizon khipus

The data and studies outlined above represent the bulk of the investigations and published commentary to date on pre-Inka cord-keeping in the Andes. Table 1 contains information on
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Figure 4. Drawing of khipu from Huaca San Marcos, Rimac Valley, Lima, Peru (after Shady Sol s et al. 2000: g. 4).

Table 1. Radiocarbon dates of Middle Horizon khipus. Sample A) AMNH 41.2/7678a B) AMNH 41.2/7678b C) AMNH 41.2/7679 D) AMNH 41.2/7681 E) AMNH 41.2/6740 Lab. no Beta-270948 Beta-270949 Beta-270950 Beta-270951 Beta-311352 BP age 1180+ 40 1140+ 40 1210+ 40 1180+ 40 1230+ 30 13 C 22.1 22.8 22.5 23.3

1 calib. AD 779891 AD 830975 AD 730884 AD 779891 AD 713865

2 calib. AD 716971 AD 779987 AD 687937 AD 716971 AD 689882

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

ve 14 C dates obtained from several Middle Horizon khipus in the collection of the AMNH (briey reviewed by Conklin 1982). I also discuss below two examples in the Museum of World Cultures, in Gothenburg, Sweden, and one that was formerly in the collection of the ItalianPeruvian student of khipus, Carlos Radicati di Primeglio, and which is now in the collections of the Museo Temple-Radicati (owned by San Marcos University), in Lima. 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 cord wrapping as a central constructional feature. My hypothesis is that Inka khipus may have emerged from the convergence of the two Middle Horizon khipu types discussed below, perhaps with additional inuence from an
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From Middle Horizon cord-keeping to the rise of Inka khipus in the central Andes

as-yet-to-be-dened (but see Urton 2013) tradition that moved Andean cord-keeping in the direction of decimalisation (i.e. the recording of numerical values in a base-ten, place-value knotting tradition). In other words, Inka khipus evolved from the merging of the primary cord + pendant cord (and simple subsidiary) tradition of the pendant khipu type with the multiple subsidiary loop-and-branch-type khipu. Both Middle Horizon types may bear a single type of knot (i.e. not the three knot types of the Inka standard). I return to the matter of the evolution of Late Horizon Inka khipus from Middle Horizon and Late Intermediate Period antecedents below.

Pendant-type khipus
The basic characteristics of this type of khipu include a primary cord to which are attached a variable number of pendant cords; the overall structural arrangement is not dissimilar to that of Inka khipus. Middle Horizon pendant-type khipus are generally made of Z-plied cotton with between four and eight stacked bands of multi-coloured camelid bre threads wrapped around the upper portion of the pendant cords. While one end of this khipu type may terminate in a loop, what distinguishes the loops in this type from the loop-and-branchtype khipu is that in the pendant type, the loop is attached to a primary cord to which the thread-wrapped pendant cords are attached, whereas in the loop-and-branch type, threadwrapped pendant cords are attached directly to the loop. It is unclear to me whether or notand if so, howthis difference may have played into differences in recording strategies between the two types of khipus. AMNH 41.2/7678 (Figure 5; Table 1 A & B) This is one of the examples illustrated and briey discussed in Conklins article (1982: g. 9). The sample lacks provenance. The khipu primary cord measures 1130mm in length and the 125 pendant cords measure between 150180mm in length. The example is of cotton and the pendant cords are wrapped in stacked bands of camelid bre threads of different colours. All but one of the pendant cords are Z-ply (as viewed in Figure 5, the fty-fth cord from the left is S-ply). None of the pendant cords bears knots. There are 21 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 the Beta Analytic AMS laboratory in Miami, Florida. The results are shown in Table 1 (A and B). The calibrated dates (at 2 ) for the rst sample from this khipu (Table 1 A) fall between AD 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 Middle Horizon period (AD 6001000). AMNH 41.2/7679 (Figure 6; Table 1 C) This khipu was illustrated and briey discussed earlier by Conklin (1982: g. 8). The length of the primary cord is 230mm. It should be noted that the loop at the left end of the primary cord is attached to the primary cord itself, not directly to thread-wrapped pendant cords (as claried above). The primary cord and all pendant and subsidiary cords are of Z-plied cotton, and all 30 pendant cords bear stacked bands of multi-coloured camelid
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Figure 5. Pendant-type khipu; AMNH 41.2/7678 (photo by Gary Urton).

Figure 6. Pendant-type khipu; AMNH 41.2/7679 (photo by Gary Urton).

thread wrapping. Twenty-ve of the pendant cords of this khipu bear a single subsidiary (secondary) cord, or multiple subsidiaries. Several of the subsidiary cords (but none of the pendants) bear overhand knots. A sample was taken from one cord of khipu AMNH 41.2/7679 for AMS dating at Beta Analytic in 2010. The results are shown in Table 1 (C). The sample yielded a calibrated date of AD 687937 at 2 . The sample appears to be more or less contemporaneous with the previous sample, both falling toward the end of the Middle Horizon period.
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Figure 7. Pendant-type khipu; AMNH 41.2/7681 (photo by Gary Urton).

It is important, in regards to the matter of their contemporaneity, to note that 21 of the 30 cords of this khipu are identical to one or other of the 21 cord types found on the previous khipu (Figure 5), whereas nine cord patterns on the khipu in Figure 6 are unique to this khipu. This suggests that the two khipus in Figures 5 and 6 were products of a shared cordkeeping 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 briey discussed by Conklin (1982: g. 7). The length of the primary cord is 1140mm; the primary cord and all pendant cords are made of Z-plied cotton. The 18 pendant cords all bear stacked bands of camelid bre thread wrapping, and all but one of the pendant cords bear one brown cotton Z-plied subsidiary cord each. All but two of the cord patterns of pendants 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-keeping tradition, 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 calendar date, at 2 calibration, between AD 716 and 971. This is precisely the same range of calibrated dates as those obtained for AMNH 41.2/7678 (Figure 5) and very close to those for AMNH 41.2/7679. The contemporaneity and overlap in cord patterning of these rst three examples suggest that they made up at least part of the archive of a highly skilled Wari cord keeper, or perhaps a group of cord keepers who were in contact and sharing cord-making techniques and perhaps information with each other.

Loop-and-branch-type khipus
We turn now to consider what I term loop-and-branch-type khipus. One nds on these examples a looped cord conguration from which one or more thread-wrapped cords are
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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 projects directly away from the loop. The bodies of the three cords are integrated into the cord construction of the loop. Each of the three projecting cords bears multiple branching, multi-coloured sub-cords and subsidiaries. All but one of the cords and subsidiaries of this example are of Z-plied cotton. The upper sections of the central and right side cords (as viewed in Figure 8) are wrapped with colourful camelid bres. The example in Figure 8 was submitted to Beta Analytic for AMS dating in 2011. The sample produced a calendar date, at 2 calibration, of AD 689882 (Table 1 E). I am aware of three other examples of loop-and-branch-type khipus that are quite similar to the one in Figure 8; these are described below, as items F to H. Figure 8. Loop-and-branch-type khipu; AMNH 41.2/ Radiocarbon dates have not been obtained 6740 (photo by Gary Urton). for 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, Carlos Radicati di Primeglio (2006). The khipu has a large loop to which are attached (in pendantcord fashion) seven pendant cords, as well as a secondary loop which itself bears four pendant cords. All cords are of Z-plied cotton. The seven pendant-type cords all bear complex, multicoloured camelid bre thread wrapping in patterns similar to, yet distinct from, those on the 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 ve overhand knots. The khipu is 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
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suspended directly (i.e. the loop is not attached to a primary cord, which stands between the loop 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 congured in a cluster of ve closely spaced knots. The cords and subsidiaries of loop-and-branch-type khipus often bear thread wrapping, although the wrapping generally does not cover as much space along the cord as on pendant-type khipus.

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

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 pendant cords bear a cluster of ve overhand knots while one cord bears six of these knots; many of the subsidiaries bear multiple overhand knots as well. The four pendant cords also carry camelid bre thread-wrapping on the upper portion of the cords. The thread-wrapping pattern is distinct from any of those seen on the three pendant khipus discussed earlier. Both this and the following example in Gothenburg are without provenance, and there are no data that I was able to obtain concerning when or how the examples came into the museums collections. 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 rst and second order, most of which are of cotton (like the loop), but some of which are of dyed camelid bres. All cords are Z-ply. There are two sections of thread wrapping, both in a pattern similar to that on example G (above) and distinct from the earlier examples. The two thread-wrapped sections on this khipu divide the branches/subsidiaries into two separate sections. A few cords carry clusters of up to ve overhand knots.

Discussion
If 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 comprises 17 examples. This would be the cord-keeping traditionor traditionsthat would
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have been manipulated, transformed and innovated on in various ways during the late Middle Horizon and the Late Intermediate periods, ultimately emerging as the tradition of knotted-cord recordkeeping in the Inka empire. At this point, two questions are of central concern: what were the central features of cordkeeping during the Middle Horizon period in the Andes? And second, what might have transpired over the course of Andean prehistory that led to the transformation of Middle Horizon cord-keeping into the Inka standard?

The principal characteristics of Middle Horizon khipus As for the rst question, the basic components of Middle Horizon cord recording devices are as follows: a) cord Figure 10. Loop-and-branch-type khipu (Gothenburg construction primarily of Z-ply white khipu 1); Museum of World Cultures, Gothenburg, Sweden cotton (see Note 2 at the end of this article); (photo by Gary Urton). b) thread-wrapping in the form of ne, brightly dyed camelid-bre threads wound in stacked bands (generally between four and eight bands) around the upper or, in a few cases, middle sections of cords; c) the sharing of thread-wrapping patterns among cords on pendant-type khipus but not on, or between, loop-and-branch-type samples; d) the incorporation of hierarchyin the form of subsidiaries and branchingas a principle of cord structure; and e) the knotting of cords with one to (commonly) ve knots in a cluster. By means of the various structural, visual (e.g. colour), and organisational features outlined above, the Middle Horizon khipus could have been employed for recording a wide range of information pertaining to multiple, hierarchically arrayed categories (i.e. sets of cords bearing thread wrapping in different patterns; the branching structures of loop-and-branchtype khipus, etc.), as well as quantities in groupings up to (commonly) ve units. I would add that there is no reason to think that users of this knotting tradition could not have applied higher powers than one (i.e. unit value) to knotsfor example, each knot could have been valued at, and multiplied by, ve, ten, etc. The presence of this collection of features suggests that the Middle Horizon khipus would have served well as a device for recording information generated within a hierarchical, state-level administrative structure, such as the Wari state. This discussion substantially supports the argument regarding the nature of and rationale for the use of cord-keeping in Wari contexts proposed earlier by Brokaw (2010).
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The transformation or evolution of Wari khipus into Inka khipus As for the changes and transformations that might, or must, have transpired in order for Inka-style khipus to have evolved out of a Middle Horizon Wari prototype through perhaps some intermediate steps, there are several things to take into account. Two of the principal changes would have been: a) a loss of colourful thread wrapping and its replacement in Inka examples by a proliferation of forms of incorporating colour differences on primary, pendant and subsidiary cords (Inka khipus display solidcolour, barber-pole and mottled cords; colour changes down the length of a single cord, etc.); and b) an explosion in the use of knots, from the exclusive use of single/overhand knots on Middle Horizon examples to the three Inka knot types: single/overhand, gure-of-eight and long knots. This would also have involved a transformation in the value of the knots themselves. This was related to the Inka practice of arranging knots in hierarchical tiers, each level signalling a higher power Figure 11. Loop-and-branch-type khipu (Gothenburg khipu 2); Museum of World Cultures, Gothenburg, of ten as one moves from the bottom of Sweden (photo by Gary Urton). the cords to the top. These latter features were the prerequisites for incorporating the principle of decimalisationthat is, a base 10 place-value numeration systeminto Inka cord accounting. The emergence of decimalisation in the Inka khipus from what appears to have been a Wari foundation in what I would term iteration (i.e. one knot + one knot = one thing + one thing = two) requires further clarication, beginning with a brief overview of the main features of Inka khipus (see Conklin 2002; Urton & Brezine 2011). Inka khipus are made of spun and plied cotton or camelid bres; ply direction is overwhelmingly (96 per cent) S-ply. The colours displayed in Inka khipus are the natural colours of cotton or camelid bres, or of the dyeing of camelid bres with natural dyes. The backbone of an Inka khipu is the so-called primary cord to which are attached a variable number of thinner strings, called pendant cords. The average number of pendants on some 450 samples studied by the Harvard Khipu Database project is 84 cords. About one quarter of all pendant cords have second-order cords, called subsidiaries, attached to them. Subsidiaries may themselves bear subsidiaries, and so on, to as many as six levels of subsidiaries. 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 clusters on different levels in a decimal place system of numerical registry. I have sent some 20
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presumed Inka samples for AMS dating and, in all but one case, the calibrated dates (for 95% certainty) have fallen between c. AD 1460 and 1650 (see Cherkinsky & Urton in press). In considering how Middle Horizon khipus might have evolved into Inka khipus, it is critical to take account of the presence, or lack, of decimal numeration as a principle of recording in Middle Horizon samples. To repeat: Middle Horizon khipus display no evidence 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 arranged in closely clustered groups of ve knots (there are many single, or lone, knots as well). There is a suggestion of an interest in values from one to ve in the Middle Horizon examples, but no evidence for decimal recording. On the other hand, the majority of Inka khipus were organised to a high degree around the recording of numerical values in decimal place-value tiered hierarchical arrangements. This pair of observations prompts a question that may take us to the heart of a critical transformation that occurred in the evolution from Wari to Inka cord-keeping: to what degree were the principal languages spoken by the peoples who most likely were the inventors, producers and users of these devicesQuechua, Aymara and Puquinabased on decimal (as opposed to, for example, base ve) numeration? Quechua, Aymara and Puquina appear to have been the principal languages at play in the processes of cultural transformation and linguistic evolution and dispersals in the central and southern Andes over the period from the Middle Horizon through to the rise of the Inkas in the Late Horizon period (see Heggarty & Beresford-Jones 2012). Cerr onPalomino (2008) has argued persuasively that the Inkas probably originally spoke Puquina, the principal language spoken during Middle Horizon times at Tiwanaku, the place of origin of the Inkas in myths widely recorded in the colonial period (Urton 1999). The Inkas would have become increasingly prominent players in the Cuzco Valley from the end of the Middle Horizon and throughout the early Late Intermediate periodroughly around AD 9001200. Establishing themselves in the valley, the Puquina-speaking ancestors of the Inkas would have interacted with local remnant Wari peoples who would have been still resident around the old Wari administrative centres, such as Pikillaqta and Huaro. Critically, Cerr on-Palomino (2008) has argued that the Wari were Aymara-speaking peoples (see Note 3 at the end of this article). In their interactions with local, remnant Wari peoples, the Inkas would have adopted Aymara as their common language. In their subsequent expansion out of the Cuzco Valley, especially toward the north-west, the Inkas would increasingly have come into the territory of Quechua-speaking peoples of the central highlands and coast, and they would have gradually adopted Quechua as their imperial lingua franca (see Cerr on-Palomino 2008; Urton 2012). Since one of the principal points of differentiation between Wari and Inka khipus is the absence of evidence for decimal numeration in the former and the clear presence of such a principle in the latter, the obvious question to ask is: was decimal numeration a feature of any or all of the three languages mentioned above? The Puquina, Quechua and Aymara names for the numbers one to ten are shown in Table 2. As seen in this table, both Puquina and Quechua have independent lexemes for the numbers one to ten; both are decimal-based systems of numeration. As for Aymara, there are independent lexemes for the numbers one to ve. The number six (suqta) is
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Table 2. Number names in three Andean languages (spellings respectively after Torero 2002: 44856; Cusihuam an 1976; Briggs 1993). Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Puquina HUKSTU SO CAPPA SPER TACPA CHICHU STU KINAS CHIQA SCATA (Cuzco) Quechua HOQ ISKAY KINSA TAWA PISQA SOQTA QANCHIS PUSAQ ISQON CHUNKA (Altiplano) Aymara MAYA PAYA KIMSA PUSI PISQA [QALLQU] SUXTA PAQALLQU KIMSAQALLQU LLATUNKA TUNKA

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

probably borrowed from Quechua (Cerr on-Palomino pers. comm. 16 July 2009). As for the numbers seven, eight and nine, these are compound terms, the rst two of which are based on additions to ve (seven = two/paya + ve/qallqu; eight = three/kimsa + ve/qallqu). Nine is almost (lla-) ten. Aymara appears to have originally had a quinary, or base ve, system of numeration. As we have noted, there are numerous instances of the clustering of groups of ve single knots in the Middle Horizon/Wari khipus, as illustrated above; this may be a sign or expression of the base value of the Aymara numbering system. From the information in Table 2, and in terms of our discussion of Middle Horizon/Wari (non-decimal/base ve) and Inka (decimal) khipus, we could say that Puquina and Quechua numeration are consistent with, or accommodate, the decimal numeration principle evident in Inka khipus. On the other hand, if indeed the Middle Horizon khipus are Wari, and if Wari peoples spoke Aymara, then we could say that there is a coincidence in Wari cord technology of a base ve terminological system and (perhaps) knotting technology. From the above observations, I argue for the following construction in linking language groups to types of khipus within the context of the succession of archaeological cultures in the central Andes in general, and within the Cuzco Valley in particular. First, I propose that the principal inventors of cord technologies for the recording of administrative information were Aymara-speaking Wari administrators from the Ayacucho Basin. The Wari records were based on wrapping colourful camelid threads around cords in stacked bands and knotting cords with single/overhand knots, often in groups of ve knots. Recording of administrative information was performed by some means of signing valuesstill opaque to usprimarily by 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, replacingor merely following on fromthe Wari. These Puquina speakers would have come into contact with Wari/Aymara (non-decimal/perhaps base ve) cord-keeping technology. As the state apparatus of these Puquina-speaking Inkas became more formalised and complex, and as
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record-keeping became increasingly important to the expanding Inka polity, the Puquina would have adopted and modied Wari/Aymara/non-decimal/base-ve cord technology in the direction of a strong principle of quantication, which they would have adapted to their own 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 signing identities and categories. In regard to colour, the Inkas abandoned the Wari practice of wrapping cords in stacked bands of brightly dyed camelid bres in favour of an expanded use of colour in actual cord construction (e.g. solid, barber-pole and mottled cords). Perhaps the reason for the later transformation was the desire to accommodate the expansion of knotting in hierarchical tiers (i.e. signalling increasing powers of ten). As the Inkas expanded out of the Cuzco Basin, especially in their movement toward the west and northwest (i.e. toward Cuntisuyu and Chinchaysuyu), they would have come increasingly into contact 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-keeping expanded and became a pervasive feature of Inka administration. The fact that relatively few Wari khipus exist today as compared to Inka khipus may be the result of the destruction of Wari records by the Inka cord keepers.

Conclusion
The weakest portion of the hypothesis articulated in this article is the absence of a clear mechanism and/or process for the transformation and evolution of Middle Horizon cordkeeping into the Inka standard. In particular, I would point to the absence of an identity for the peoples and/or cultures of the Late Intermediate period (c. AD 10001450) who were responsible for inuencing the shift from non-decimal/base-ve accounting in the Wari tradition to the decimal tradition of Inka accounting. My surmise (Urton 2013) is that the dynamics of this transformation may have occurred in the interaction of early Inka cord keepers with Quechua-speaking populations of the central coast and/or highlands of Peru during the Late Intermediate period. Specically, this interaction may have been concentrated in the region of the Rimac and Lurin valleys, where there were rich and diverse traditions of cord-keeping during what I have hypothesised to be Late Intermediate/Late Horizon times. Finally, the hypothesis developed herein implies that wherever decimal-using Inka administrators came into contact with non-decimal/base-ve-using peoples (e.g. the expanding Aymara populations around and to the south of Lake Titicaca, in Collasuyu), there would have emerged the conditions for conict in the form of disjunctions in administrative organisations and cord-keeping practices and principles. Nonetheless, the Inkas persisted in their efforts to implant decimal organisation in the political systems of these (non-decimal/base ve) Aymara populations of the regionuntil the Spanish invasion. It is no small irony that the Spanish conquistadores were not only decimalusing peoples themselves, but also that they bore a recording technologyalphanumeric
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From Middle Horizon cord-keeping to the rise of Inka khipus in the central Andes

writingthat rapidly superseded the khipu as the primary instrument for record-keeping in the Andes. Acknowledgements
I express my appreciation to Carrie J. Brezine and Julia L. Meyerson for commenting on earlier drafts of this paper. I also thank Bill Sillar and Sabine Hyland for their reviews and helpful suggestions on a later draft, which greatly improved the nal text. I alone am responsible for any errors that remain. I gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the staff of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, for allowing me to take samples from four Middle Horizon khipus for radiocarbon dating. Thanks to Dr Alexander Cherkinsky, of the Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia, for his advice and collaboration on the interpretation of the AMS readings performed by the University of Georgia laboratory and Beta Analytic. The Khipu 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 Shady Sol s et al. (2000). It appears that the deposit in which the khipu was found was excavated and removed from its original location in the 1970s; however, no mention was made in the notes at that time of the discovery of a khipu. It was only in 1999, at the time of a re-excavation of the sector from which the deposit had earlier been removed, that the material from the earlier excavation was re-examined and the khipu was discovered. In their description of their later (1999) excavations, Shady Sol s et al. state that the stratigraphic level from which the example 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 preservation of coastal examples, where cotton predominated, than in the highlands, where camelid bre was more common as 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 Cerr on-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. References
BROKAW, 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 of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51: 33760. -PALOMINO, R. 2004. El Aimara como lengua CERRON ofcial de los Incas: identidad y transformaci on en el Tawantinsuyu y en los Andes coloniales, in P. Kaulicke, G. Urton & I. Farrington (ed.) Perspectivas arqueol ogicas y etnohist oricas (Bolet n de Arqueolog a PUCP 8): 921. Lima: Ponticia Universidad Cat olica del Per u. 2008. Voces del Ande: ensayos sobre onom astica andina. Lima: Ponticia Universidad Cat olica del Per u.
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CHERKINSKY, A. & G. URTON. In press. Radiocarbon chronology of Andean khipus. Radiocarbon. CONKLIN, W.J. 1982. The information system of the Middle Horizon quipus, in A. Aveni & G. Urton (ed.) Ethnoastronomy and archaeoastronomy in the American tropics (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 385): 26181. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. 2002. A khipu information string theory, in J. Quilter & G. Urton (ed.) Narrative threads: accounting and recounting in Andean khipu: 5386. Austin: University of Texas Press. COVEY, R.A. 2006. How the Incas built their heartland: state formation and the innovation of imperial strategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

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

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