Ascertain whether Inca quipu makers attempted mathematical analyses of quipu trees

Ascertain whether Inca quipu makers attempted to address mathematical questions about their quipus viewed as tree graphs—such as enumerating distinct trees with a given branching structure or analyzing structural properties—by seeking direct historical, ethnographic, or archaeological evidence of such reasoning.

Background

Quipus are described as knotted-cord recording devices whose structure naturally corresponds to rooted trees, a central object in graph theory. The text references Arthur Cayley’s 1857 work on enumerating trees, highlighting a modern mathematical framework for such structures.

While the paper notes that Incas clearly understood tree constructions within quipus (e.g., encoding numbers and colors per edge), it emphasizes the absence of direct evidence that they pursued formal combinatorial questions analogous to Cayley’s results. This leaves open whether similar mathematical analyses were undertaken historically by quipu makers.