Читать книгу Mesoamerican Archaeology - Группа авторов - Страница 20

The development of calendars, mathematical notation, and writing served to represent the distinctive perspectives of Mesoamerican peoples, making these the most diagnostic features of these societies. Indigenous calendars in use in the early sixteenth century shared a basic structure. All were based on counting sets of individual days. The earliest recorded date preserved is on a late Middle Formative monument from San Jose Mogote in what today is Oaxaca. However, it is likely that, in addition to being used to measure time, Mesoamerican mathematics were originally developed for broader use, including in economic transactions (Freidel 1993). Understanding Mesoamerican historical consciousness thus begins with understanding math.