Aztec Arithmetic Revisited: Land-Area Algorithms and Acolhua Congruence Arithmetic

Aztec Arithmetic Revisited: Land-Area Algorithms and Acolhua Congruence Arithmetic

Acolhua-Aztec land records depicting areas and side dimensions of agricultural fields provide insight into Aztec arithmetic. Hypothesizing that recorded areas resulted from indigenous calculation, in a study of sample quadrilateral fields we found that 60% of the area values could be reproduced exac...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 320; no. 5872; pp. 72 - 77
Main Authors: Williams, Barbara J, Jorge y Jorge, María del Carmen
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 04-04-2008
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
Subjects:
Agriculture
Algorithms
Arithmetic
Arm
Aztec civilization
Aztec culture
Bones
Exact sciences and technology
General, history and biography
History and philosophy of mathematics
History, 16th Century
Humans
Indians, North American - history
Integers
Land
Land surveying
Mathematical congruence
Mathematics
Mathematics - history
Metrology
Monads
Native peoples
Sciences and techniques of general use
Congruence
Arithmetics
Algorithm
Historical aspects
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Acolhua-Aztec land records depicting areas and side dimensions of agricultural fields provide insight into Aztec arithmetic. Hypothesizing that recorded areas resulted from indigenous calculation, in a study of sample quadrilateral fields we found that 60% of the area values could be reproduced exactly by computation. In remaining cases, discrepancies between computed and recorded areas were consistently small, suggesting use of an unknown indigenous arithmetic. In revisiting the research, we discovered evidence for the use of congruence principles, based on proportions between the standard linear Acolhua measure and their units of shorter length. This procedure substitutes for computation with fractions and is labeled "Acolhua congruence arithmetic." The findings also clarify variance between Acolhua and Tenochca linear units, long an issue in understanding Aztec metrology.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1153976