Two chapters, the same questions asked of both
Put two Deep Time chapters next to each other — their evidence base, the dating methods behind them, the live debates, and the questions still open.
Inca
Road systems, khipu record-keeping, and stonework still being reverse-engineered.
Open full chapter →Middle Ages
What survived antiquity, what was copied, and what was lost in transmission.
Open full chapter →Monumental stone architecture, the road network, khipu cord records, Spanish administrative inspections, and Andean archaeology across a vast altitudinal range.
Charters, chronicles, manuscript libraries, standing buildings, archaeology of towns and farms, and increasingly dendrochronology and ancient DNA.
| Method | What it constrains |
|---|---|
| Architectural and quarry analysisTool marks, unfinished blocks and abandoned quarry stones | Documents shaping and transport methods. Exact logistics of the largest blocks are still modelled. |
| Khipu structural studyCord, knot type, ply direction and colour in surviving khipu | Numerical content is readable. Whether narrative content is encoded remains open. |
| Colonial administrative recordsInspections and tribute assessments | Preserves detail about the Inca system through a Spanish administrative lens. |
| Method | What it constrains |
|---|---|
| DendrochronologyTimber in standing buildings and waterlogged deposits | Can date felling to a year, which anchors both buildings and climate records. |
| Ancient pathogen genomicsDental pulp from plague-period burials | Identifies the pathogen and its lineage. Mortality rates still come from documentary estimates. |
| Charter and archival analysisLand grants, court rolls and account books | Provides granular economic and legal data, skewed toward institutions that kept archives. |
Do khipu encode language as well as numbers?
Some khipu resist purely numerical interpretation; no reading has been independently reproduced.
What was Machu Picchu for?
Royal estate is the leading reading, based on a colonial land document and site layout.
How severe was post-Roman economic contraction in the west?
Pottery distribution and settlement data show sharp regional variation.
What ended the medieval period?
The boundary is a historiographic convenience, drawn differently by region and discipline.
- Can khipu be read beyond accounting?
- How were labour obligations organised across the whole empire?
- How much high-altitude archaeology remains unsurveyed?
- How did climate shifts interact with famine and plague?
- How much rural life is recoverable outside manorial records?
- How much manuscript material still sits uncatalogued in European libraries?