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5,000 mysterious holes carved into a Peruvian hillside were an 'ancient computer' used for accounting - 10bmnews (10bmnews.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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[–] 26 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The computer or spreadsheet idea is a bit ridiculous to me on account of even ancient humans could devise the same method in a smaller scale without the backbreaking 5,000 holes being dug. Every other idea presented by the article makes sense to me.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (3 children)

    Ancient humans were kind of known for building things big af though. Pyramids, petroglyphs, henges.

    Khufu’s pyramid has like 2 million blocks. 5000 holes is a rounding error.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Unless ancient humans were all Matt Parkers, it makes no sense to me that they'd make a gigantic counting system.

    "Hey, we have 6 more livestock now"

    "GATHER THE MEN, we're adding rocks to the hill!"

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    You're talking about a time that could be pre-numbering system so instead of "i have 6 sheep" it's more like "I have this many sheep" and you point to your hole which has 6 of whatever the thing is that they were using. maybe kernels of corn? Then you make sure you have one kernel for each sheep. But I'm just guessing.

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