The Americas and Time Keeping: Crash Course History of Science #5

Summary

This script explores the scientific achievements of Mesoamerican civilizations, focusing on the Maya, Aztecs, and Inkas. It delves into their complex calendar systems, particularly the Maya's intricate timekeeping involving five interlocking calendars. The Maya's base-twenty mathematical system and their detailed astronomical observations are highlighted, as well as the Aztecs' advanced agricultural techniques and the Inkas' khipu record-keeping system. The script also touches on the impact of Spanish colonization on these civilizations and the ongoing efforts to decode their knowledge systems.

Takeaways

• 📜 The history of science is often traced back to ancient civilizations like the Greeks and Indians, but it's important to recognize that systematic knowledge-making has likely been a part of human culture since the beginning of time.
• 🌐 Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Maya, developed complex systems of understanding the cosmos, time, and the natural world without contact with other major civilizations.
• 🗓️ The Maya were particularly advanced in their astronomical knowledge and had a sophisticated calendar system, which included a 260-day sacred cycle and a 'Long Count' that could measure time in millions of years.
• 📚 Despite the destruction of many records by Spanish imperialists, archaeologists and linguists have been able to decode some of the Mayan hieroglyphs and understand their monumental stone works.
• 🔢 The Olmecs, an early Mesoamerican civilization, invented a mathematical system that included the concept of zero and a calendar system that influenced later cultures.
• 🏰 The Maya built step pyramids that served as both temples and observatories, demonstrating their advanced understanding of astronomy and architecture.
• 🌟 The Maya's focus on Venus as the most important heavenly body highlights the cultural significance of different celestial bodies in ancient societies.
• 📈 The Maya's base-twenty mathematical system and their large calculation tables were essential for their religious practices, particularly in predicting future calendar dates.
• 🌱 The Maya's agricultural practices, including intensive cultivation and irrigation, supported their large population and contributed to their civilization's complexity.
• 🏥 Aztec civilization, which rose after the Maya, was known for its advanced hydraulic engineering, extensive agricultural systems, and a rich knowledge of botany and medicine.
• 🌿 The Inka Empire in South America developed a unique system of record-keeping using khipu, which were strings with knots that encoded information about taxes, census, and more.

Q & A

What is the significance of the Olmec civilization in the history of Mesoamerican science?

The Olmecs, who lived in southern Mexico from 1500 to 400 BCE, are significant because they were the earliest Mesoamerican civilization to develop writing, a mathematical system including the concept of zero, and a calendar system that influenced later Mesoamerican civilizations.

How did the Maya civilization's knowledge of astronomy manifest in their architecture?

The Maya built step pyramids that served as temples and astronomical observation sites. The Caracol at Chichén Itzá, for instance, was constructed to align with the extremes of Venus's rising and setting, demonstrating their advanced astronomical knowledge.

What was unique about the Maya's mathematical system?

The Maya used a base-twenty or vigesimal mathematical system that included the concept of zero but did not use fractions. They also created large calculation tables, which were essential for their complex calendar system and religious practices.

Why was Venus so important to the Maya civilization?

To the Maya, Venus was the most important heavenly body. Their calendar system was intricately tied to the movements of Venus, and they used it for religious, agricultural, and astrological purposes.

How did the Maya's complex calendar system aid in their understanding of time?

The Maya used a system of five interlocking calendars to accurately track time across solar, lunar, and Venusian years. This system allowed them to define each day's sacred function in relation to Venus and provided a precise sense of time for religious, agricultural, and daily life activities.

What is the 'Long Count' in the Maya calendar, and how does it differ from other calendars?

The 'Long Count' is a calendar system used by the Maya that counts time in units ranging from one day to sixty-three thousand years. It allowed the Maya to reckon time in the millions of years, which is a significant difference from annual or cyclical calendars.

How did the Aztecs' knowledge of hydraulic engineering contribute to the development of Tenochtitlán?

The Aztecs used hydraulic engineering to build canals, floodgates, and aqueducts, which enabled them to practice intensive lake-marsh agriculture. This engineering allowed Tenochtitlán, built on Lake Texcoco, to support a large population of around three hundred thousand people.

What was the role of the Aztec priest class in the collection and maintenance of botanical and medical knowledge?

Aztec priests maintained a wealth of botanical and medical knowledge, serving as astrologers and healers. They believed in a complex humoral system linking plants, the human body, and the heavens, and had an extensive anatomical lexicon, even treating conditions like dandruff.

How did the Inka civilization manage to record and share complex data without a writing system?

The Inka used a sophisticated system of tying strings of knots called khipu to keep records. Khipu used a decimal system and allowed the Inka to share data related to taxes, the census, the calendar, and military organization, and may have functioned somewhat like a writing system.

What impact did the Spanish colonization have on the scientific and cultural knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the Americas?

Spanish colonization devastated the cultures native to the Americas, leading to a significant loss of their complex scientific and cultural knowledge.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 The Legacy of Mesoamerican Science

This paragraph delves into the rich history of scientific knowledge in Mesoamerica, highlighting the civilizations of the Olmecs and the Maya. It discusses the challenges historians face due to the scarcity of written records, the importance of stone engravings, and the decoding of Mayan hieroglyphs. The Olmecs' contributions to art, writing, mathematics, and calendar systems are emphasized, as is the Maya's advanced understanding of astronomy, particularly their focus on the planet Venus. The Maya's complex calendar system, which included interlocking calendars for tracking time over millions of years, is explored, along with their mathematical system and its application in religious and agricultural practices. The paragraph also touches on the cultural significance of the Maya's time-keeping and its continued practice by modern-day Day Keepers.

05:02

📚 The Maya's Astronomical and Agricultural Endeavors

The second paragraph expands on the Maya's intricate writing system and their deep understanding of astronomy, which allowed them to predict lunar months and eclipses with high precision. It discusses the Maya's research into the movements of celestial bodies like Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter, and their use of this knowledge for astrological prophecies and military strategy. The agricultural practices of the Maya are also highlighted, including their sophisticated irrigation systems and crop cultivation, which supported their large and densely populated cities. The paragraph concludes with a discussion of the challenges faced by the Maya civilization, such as deforestation and climate change, and the impact of Spanish colonization on their culture and scientific advancements.

10:02

🌱 The Agricultural and Astronomical Achievements of South American Civilizations

The final paragraph shifts focus to South American civilizations, emphasizing their extensive trade networks and the monumental architecture of empires like the Inka. It discusses the Inka's sophisticated khipu system for record-keeping, which was used for tax collection, census data, and possibly as a form of writing. The paragraph also touches on the challenges faced by historians in understanding these ancient civilizations due to the lack of written records and the devastation caused by colonization. It concludes with a look forward to the next episode, which will explore the engineering feats of the ancient Romans.

Keywords

💡Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica refers to a historical region and cultural area in the Americas that extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador and into western Nicaragua. In the video, Mesoamerica is highlighted for its classical civilizations, such as the Maya and Aztec cultures, which developed sophisticated systems for understanding the cosmos, time, and agriculture without contact with Africa, Asia, or Europe.

💡Mayan

The Maya were a civilization in Mesoamerica known for their cities, monumental stone works, and intricate knowledge systems, particularly in astronomy and mathematics. The video discusses the Maya's advanced calendar system, including the tzolkin and the Long Count, which allowed them to measure time with remarkable precision. The Maya's understanding of time was deeply intertwined with their religious practices and daily life, as seen in their construction of pyramids and observatories.

💡Astronomy

Astronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole. In the context of the video, the Maya's astronomical knowledge is emphasized, particularly their focus on the planet Venus and their ability to predict its movements and eclipses. The video mentions the Caracol at Chichen Itza, built to align with Venus's extreme rising and setting, showcasing the Maya's advanced astronomical observations and their cultural significance.

💡Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of numbers, quantities, and shapes, and their relationships. The video highlights the Maya's mathematical system, which was base-twenty (vigesimal) and included the concept of zero. This system was crucial for their calendar calculations and for the large tables they used for various cultural and religious purposes, demonstrating the practical application of mathematics in ancient Mesoamerican societies.

💡Calendar

A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. The video explains the Maya's complex system of interlocking calendars, which included the tzolkin and the Vague Year, creating the Calendar Round that repeated every 52 years. This system was not only used for timekeeping but also held sacred significance and was integral to the Maya's religious practices and prophecies.

💡Hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs are a type of ancient writing that uses pictorial symbols rather than an alphabet. The video mentions that linguists have recently decoded many hieroglyphs found on Mayan engravings, which has helped historians understand the role of monumental stone works in ancient Mesoamerican society and the knowledge systems they developed.

💡Aztec

The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521 CE. The video describes the Aztecs' impressive city planning and engineering, particularly in Tenochtitlán, which was built on an island in Lake Texcoco. Their civilization was characterized by a complex bureaucracy, a priest caste, and a rich knowledge of botany and medicine, which were maintained by their priests who also functioned as astrologers.

💡Inka

The Inka, or Inca, were a pre-Columbian empire based in the Andean region from around the 13th century until the 16th-century Spanish conquest. The video discusses the Inka's sophisticated khipu system, a method of recording data using strings of knots, which was used for tax, census, and calendric records. The Inka civilization is noted for its monumental architecture, such as Machu Picchu, and its extensive administrative systems, despite the absence of a traditional writing system.

💡Khipu

A khipu is a recording device used in the Inca Empire that consists of a series of colored, spun, and plied threads or strings made from cotton or camelid fiber. The video explains that khipu used a decimal system and might have functioned similarly to a writing system, allowing the Inka to record and transmit complex information, although the full extent of their use and meaning is still being researched.

💡Agricultural Intensification

Agricultural intensification refers to the process of increasing agricultural output through more efficient use of resources or by bringing more marginal lands into production. The video describes how the Maya practiced intensive cultivation of crops like maize and used irrigation techniques, which were essential for supporting their large population and constructing monumental structures. This concept illustrates the integration of scientific knowledge and practical application in ancient societies.

Highlights

Ancient cultures like Egyptian, Sumerian, and Chinese had writing and useful sciences, but classical Greek and Indian cultures developed systems for understanding the cosmos.

Mesoamerican civilizations, now Mexico and Central America, had knowledge-making systems without contact with Africa, Asia, or Europe.

The Maya civilization had a profound understanding of time, with a complex system of interlocking calendars.

The Olmecs, an early Mesoamerican civilization, invented a mathematics system including the number zero and a calendar system.

Maya step pyramids served as temples and astronomical observation sites, like the Caracol at Chichén Itzá aligned with Venus.

The Maya used a base-twenty mathematical system with large tables for calculations, crucial for their calendar and religious practices.

The Maya's Calendar Round combined the tzolkin and Vague Year calendars, repeating every 52 years.

The Long Count calendar allowed the Maya to track time in millions of years, with each day having a specific sacred function.

Mayan writing system consisted of hundreds of glyphs with both symbolic and phonetic meanings, indicating a priest-scribe caste.

Mayan scribes were able to determine the lunar month to three decimal places and predict eclipses.

Agricultural practices of the Maya included intensive cultivation and domestication of various animals, supporting a large population.

The Aztecs, successors to the Maya, built the capital Tenochtitlán on Lake Texcoco, showcasing advanced hydraulic engineering.

Aztecs maintained a complex bureaucracy with tax collection, judiciary systems, and censuses, using the Mayan Calendar Round.

Aztec healers had specialized knowledge, including surgery, bloodletting, and herbal drug creation, with an extensive anatomical lexicon.

The Inka Empire in the Andes Mountains used a sophisticated system of khipu, strings of knots, for record-keeping without a writing system.

Spanish colonization had a devastating impact on Mesoamerican cultures, leading to a loss of knowledge and a break from ancient civilizations.

Transcripts

Let’s recap the history of science so far: systematic knowledge-making has probably occurred

as long as humans have been around.

Unfortunately, historians rely primarily on written records, and those are only a few

thousand years old.

Although ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, and Chinese cultures had writing and useful sciences,

we started with classical Greek and Indian cultures that developed systems for understanding

the cosmos and all the stuff in it.

Today, we’re going to jump through space to see how other cultures made knowledge at

roughly the same time without any contact with the peoples of Africa, Asia, or Europe.

This is a story about the planet Venus, breathtaking pyramids,

and most of all the question “when are we?”

What is time, and how do you measure it?

[Intro Music Plays]

The classical civilizations of Mesoamerica, or what is now Mexico and Central America,

didn’t “leave behind” as many paper sources as those of the Indian or Greco-Roman

linguistic worlds…

Because after CE 1500, Spanish imperialists destroyed those records.

Of all the Mayan books made of folded-up bark cloth—called codies—only four survive

today.

Luckily, stone tends to stick around.

There are thousands of Mayan stone engravings.

Archaeologists are still working to learn what role monumental stone works served in

ancient Mesoamerican society.

And linguists have only recently decoded many hieroglyphs found on Mayan engravings.

But stone carvings mostly concern gods and wars.

Historians struggle to understand what daily life was like and—in the case of science—how

ancient Mesoamericans produced knowledge unrelated to the divine stars.

To paraphrase archaeologist Michael Coe, imagine that everything we knew about English came

from only three prayer books…

The earliest Mesoamerican writing comes from

the Olmecs, who lived in what is today southern Mexico from 1500 to 400 BCE.

Their carvings included human–jaguar hybrids.

But the Olmecs are best known for their colossal human heads cut from volcanic stone.

From an early date, Mesoamerican cultures traded goods and knowledge.

Over time, sites elsewhere took on Olmec features.

In addition to an art style and a writing system, the Olmecs invented a mathematics,

including the number zero, and a calendar system that influenced later Mesoamerican

civilizations.

Ancient Mesoamerican civilization reached a height of astronomical knowledge under the

Maya.

They ruled over what is now all of Belize and Guatemala, western El Salvador and Honduras,

and southern Mexico from 2000 BCE until the 1600s, in the common era.

The Maya built great step pyramids.

These were temples devoted to kings as well as sites for making astronomical observations.

The Caracol or Observatory of Chichén Itzá, for example, was built

to align with the extremes of Venus’s rising and setting in the year CE 1000.

That's cool!

The Maya had a base-twenty or vigesimal mathematical system that included zero, but no fractions.

And they created very large tables for calculations.

These tables came in handy because one of the principal cultural obsessions of the Maya

priesthood was calculating future calendar dates—and we’re talking very far future.

You may have heard a sort of history of science urban legend—that the Maya thought the world

would end when their calendar calculations ran out on December 23, 2012…

Which, I think we can confirm, didn’t happen.

We aren’t sure what the ancient Maya thought, but it’s true that they made of lot of calculations

about time for religious purposes.

To understand Mayan time-keeping, let’s head to the ThoughtBubble:

“When are we?”

To answer this question, the Maya used an extraordinarily complicated system of five

interlocking calendars of different lengths.

This provided them with very accurate timing regarding both the solar and lunar years…

and the Venusian year.

Because, to the Maya, Venus was the most important heavenly body.

The primary calendars were the tzolkin, a 260-day sacred cycle that developed by CE

200, and the “Vague Year” solar calendar.

The Vague Year has eighteen 20-day months with a period of five unlucky corrective days

to bring the year to 365 days total.

But vaguely.

The tzolkin and Vague Year together made the Calendar Round, which repeated every 52 years.

Also, the 260-day tzolkin was made up of two smaller calendars, marking a 13-day numbered

and 20-day named cycle of days. But also the Maya kept track of the “Long

Count”—a calendar made of different units ranging from one day to sixty-three thousand

years.

Using the Long Count, the Maya reckoned time in the millions of years.

Thus every single day of the Maya year served a specific sacred function defined in relation

to Venus, which mattered in Mayan astrology and medicine; and gave the average person

a useful sense of time, for example in relation to the harvest; and also answered the question

“when are we?”

accurately across literally millions of years.

Perhaps no other people in human history have cultivated such a complete understanding of time.

And this isn’t just history.

In Guatemala, there are Mayan priests called Day Keepers who still keep the sacred calendar.

And you can buy tzolkins in your local mini-mart.

Thanks Thought Bubble.

The Maya developed a writing system of hundreds of square glyphs depicting natural elements

such as jaguars, fish, and people.

These carry both symbolic and phonetic meanings.

That is, they can indicate sounds and directly represent ideas.

The complexity of the system points to a priest–scribe caste.

And there was an academy for them at Mayapán.

From the few Mayan codices that remain, we know that the scribes determined the lunar

month to three decimal places and predicted eclipses.

They also actively undertook research to improve the accuracy of their tables, improving their

understanding of Venus’s movements over time.

They may have worked on astronomical tables for Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter as well.

Why did the Maya undertake a long-term research program about the planets?

We don’t know for sure, but we know they had a complex astrological system that generated

prophecies by correlating the positions of Venus and other heavenly bodies with historical events.

With this system, the Maya coordinated military campaigns and how your individual daily life

would work out… and what would happen millions of years in the future.

You know, small stuff.

How do you build all of those temples to Venus?

You need a lot of people.

In pre-industrial times, that meant you needed good farmers.

In addition to swidden or shifting agriculture, the Maya also practiced intensive cultivation

of crops such as maize, sunflower, cotton, chiles,

chocolate, and vanilla using irrigation.

They domesticated dogs and ducks, and penned up wild turkeys and deer.

Is agriculture a science?

It definitely encompasses lots of knowledge-work, including crop improvement and the management

of large-scale production systems involving canals and multiple harvests.

In fact, historians are only today coming to understand just how densely populated the

Mayan world was.

Central America is tropical, so many Mayan ruins lie buried underneath the forest.

But recent archaeological evidence uncovered using LiDAR—light detection and ranging—at

the metropolis of Tikal, in what is now Guatemala, has shown that Mayan civilization was perhaps

three times as populous as previously thought.

By the way, LiDAR a good example of how modern science can help us understand history, including

the history of science.

Without the wheel or the horse, the Maya cities were for a while united in a true hydraulic

empire.

Maya civilization was not only much larger than, say, the equivalent one in medieval

England, but on the same scale as the great dynasties of medieval China.

Mayan culture came under stress in CE 800, and the Long Count fell into disuse after 1200.

The fragility of the Mayan food system probably played a role in collapse.

Deforestation to make lime for stucco, or plaster for decoration, may have played a

role in changing rainfall patterns, leading to famines.

Then, after 1500, Spanish genocide definitively crushed high Mayan culture.

The 260-day sacred tzolkin persisted, but the Maya didn’t maintain a class of astronomer–priests.

After the decline of the Mayan states but before the arrival of the Spanish, tribes

from what is now northern Mexico moved south and established new kingdoms.

The largest group of peoples who settled in central Mexico were the Nahuas.

The Nahuas called the Aztecs were the great builders of central Mexico.

They planned the great capital of Tenochtitlán in 1325, on Lake Texcoco,

and this city is still around: you might know it as Ciudad de México, or Mexico City.

Building a big stone city on top of a lake and growing enough food for its citizens involved

a lot of hydraulic engineering.

The Aztecs created a system of canals, floodgates, and aqueducts.

They used dikes to separate fresh and saltwater.

This allowed them to practice intensive lake-marsh agriculture, growing maize, amaranth, fish,

and ducks.

In this way, Tenochtitlán supported a population of maybe three hundred thousand.

Here, the Aztecs supported a full-time priest caste, as well as a large army and many merchants.

Aztec bureaucracy included tax collection, judiciary system, and censuses.

The Aztecs used the 52-year Mayan Calendar Round but aligned their great temple with

the setting sun, not Venus.

And the Aztecs built other buildings on equinoctial lines—or the lines along which the plane

of Earth’s equator passes through the center of the Sun’s disk, once in the spring and

once in the fall.

The Aztecs collected a wealth of botanical and medical knowledge, maintained by priests

who also served as astrologers.

They believed in a complicated humoral system that linked plants, the human body, and the

heavens.

Which was oddly similar to the Greco-Roman-Islamicate one we’ll talk about in a few episodes.

Aztec healers seem to have been specialists, focusing either on surgery, bloodletting,

childbirth, creating herbal drugs, or treating sick turkeys.

Aztec physicians had an extensive anatomical lexicon.

They even treated dandruff!

No wonder Aztec life expectancy exceeded that of the Spanish colonizers.

Like the Mesoamericans, the people of South America traded widely.

Very widely: a new genetic study of sweet potatoes shows that Polynesians traveled to

the Americas around CE 1000 at least once, traded for these vegetables, and then possibly

came back.

They may have also introduced chickens to the Americas ahead of the Europeans.

The South Americans forged empires, featuring monumental stonework and carefully planned

agriculture.

The Inka developed an empire in the Andes Mountains from roughly CE 1100 until the Spanish

conquest.

The most famous Inkan site is Machu Pichu, in what is now Peru.

This city of polished, carefully fitted stone was built around 1450… on the top of a mountain.

The Inkan state involved tax and census records, standard measures, medical specialists, and

astronomical and calendric data recorded into the very architecture of their cities.

But, unlike the other original empires, no writing system. This makes the story of Incan knowledge making,

difficult to recover.

The Inka did, however, use a sophisticated system of tying strings of knots, called khipu

to keep records.

Khipu used a decimal system and allowed the Inka to share data related to taxes, the census,

the calendar, and military organization…

And the khipu might have worked a bit like a writing system, too, at least some of the

time.

Just as linguists are still decoding the hieroglyphs of the Maya, researchers are still trying

to understand just what the khipu mean.

In fact, the latest breakthrough, linking khipu record-keeping to a colonial-era Spanish

census, was made by an undergraduate!

The Spanish and other colonizers devastated cultures native to the Americas.

Reducing the complexity of thousands of years of history into a small number of paper sources and a

few dozen monumental stone buildings and artworks.

Nature reclaimed entire cities, and historians are left to scratch their heads.

Many people of Mayan, Aztec, and Inkan heritage are alive today, but the Spanish genocide

created a decisive break with ancient Mayan, Aztec, and Inkan civilizations, distinct from

those of Europe and elsewhere.

Next time—we’ll explore the infrastructural engineering with the ancient Romans.

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