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Part of the book series: Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science ((SACH,volume 2))

Abstract

This paper is about the South American indigenous group commonly called the Incas and their mathematics. The first term we must clarify is ‘Inca’, by which we refer to a collection of many groups who had a common government, religion and language, but were of distinct cultural origins. When we speak of the ‘Inca Empire’, we refer to the territory controlled by the Inca from about 1400 to 1560 AD, though we will see that there were other groups before and during those years that had significant influence on the Incas and their mathematics. The first Incas started near Cuzco in present-day Peru and persistently moved on neighboring groups until they formed an enormous empire that included part or all of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and southern Colombia.

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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Gilsdorf, T.E. (2000). Inca Mathematics. In: Selin, H. (eds) Mathematics Across Cultures. Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4301-1_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4301-1_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-0260-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4301-1

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