Well worth the time reading, for anyone unacquainted with ancient (3,000 B.C.) S.American societies.

[wnylib]

10. I minored in anthropology, with

a main interest in the cultures of the Americas.

i wasn't aware of the extent of the Inca interest in astronomy. They must have had a system of telling time, e.g. calculating and numbering months, in order to create the sites that let them know when to plant. So they had a complex numerical system, which we know from their use of quipus. I have no idea how to use one, but as far as I know, the Inca system did not have zero, as the Mayan system did. And nobody, not the Incas, Europeans, or Asians, had the year calculated as precisely as the Mayans.

The linked article mentions that the Inca differed from European concepts of constellations because the Incans considered the constellations as living beings that were part of the interconnectedness of life (a theme shared by many Native cultures). By contrast, it says that European constellations were inanimate and not connected to people or the rest of the world. But that overlooks the practice of astrology, which reached Europe from Middle Eastern "wise men." Astrology holds that the planets and stars have a strong influence on life on earth.

The people of each region develop their own adaptations to their environments and their own customs and cultures, but often are influenced by the developments of previous cultures or separate contemporary ones.

I long believed there was a trade connection between Mesoamerica and North America which spread corn (maize) agriculture and aspects of Mesoamerican culture to the Mississippi River basin and its tributaries. Now I suspect that some aspects of Mesoamerican culture originated in the Amazon basin which influenced the people of Peru to the west and people of Mesoamerica to the north.