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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsA 2026 computer-science paper did not discover an ancient Inca computer or decipher quipus. It describes something more limited, but still interesting: researchers built a modern data structure inspired by how quipus organize cords, groups and values. The distinction matters. The work shows that selected quipu-like principles can be implemented in software; it does not establish that the Inca used quipus as computers.
What the 2026 study actually found
In “Quipu Data Structure,” Richard Dosselmann, Edward Doolittle and Vatika Tayal propose a software structure modeled on characteristics associated with quipus. They explicitly say that deciphering the information encoded in historical quipus is outside the paper’s aim. The study therefore offers no new reading of an ancient object and no archaeological proof that Inca administrators used software-like computation. The paper’s abstract and stated objective make that boundary clear.
The authors’ result is a computer-science model: a way to organize data that borrows selected features of quipus. Popular headlines describing this as the Inca inventing the world’s first computer turn that modern analogy into an ancient historical claim the study does not support.
What a quipu is—and what remains uncertain
A quipu, also spelled khipu, is an Andean information-recording device made from cords and knots. Surviving evidence supports their use to record numerical and administrative information, while the full range of meanings encoded in them remains unresolved. Cords can vary in color and direction, and some are grouped. Those are features the 2026 paper uses as inspiration, not proof that every historical feature worked exactly as its software counterpart does.
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Quipus should not be dismissed as “just knots” because they were not alphabetic writing. They were a sophisticated medium for recording and organizing information. But neither the fact that some quipus encode numbers nor this software study establishes that they were general-purpose computers.
How the proposed data structure works
A data structure is an arrangement of information designed to support operations such as adding, finding, removing, grouping or totaling entries. Arrays, linked lists, trees and hash tables are familiar examples. The researchers’ “quipu” is a modern software abstraction: it represents data as cords and groups, rather than translating a surviving Inca device into executable code.
The model combines several properties:
- Hierarchy: Data can sit at nested levels, like a region containing settlements or a folder containing subfolders.
- Grouping: Related cords can be collected together without requiring every item to belong to one flat sequence.
- Partial unsortedness: Elements need not be globally ordered, which can suit insertion into grouped collections.
- Internal summation: A group can have a top cord representing an aggregate of values beneath it.
- Color and direction: The software records color and a directional property as digital attributes.
These choices make the model potentially useful for nested or categorized data. They are design analogies; the paper does not establish that historical quipus used these properties in precisely the same computational way.
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What the researchers implemented
The authors created interfaces in C++ and Python, proposed a digital file format, and demonstrated three applications: a spreadsheet, a file system and image representation. The demonstrations show that the proposed structure can be implemented for different kinds of information; they do not make it a production-ready replacement for existing software.
Spreadsheet
Grouped values and internal totals can represent data arranged in nested categories—for example, totals for items within a department. The appeal is the organization of related values, not a claim that the model is a better spreadsheet in general.
File system
A hierarchy of groups resembles folders and subfolders. The paper argues that the structure may be useful when information is frequently inserted into hierarchical locations, though a demonstration alone does not establish performance or suitability for operating systems at scale.
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Image representation
The image example represents pixels as colored cords and groups sequences of similarly colored pixels using run-length coding. The paper also demonstrates a permuted image representation. These are applications of the modern model, not evidence that ancient quipus stored pictures.
What the .qpu format is
The authors propose the .qpu extension for serializing quipu-structure data. Records can include whether an entry is a cord or group, color, direction, knot values and hierarchical indentation. Examples use pipe delimiters; the paper notes that the vertical bar was chosen partly because it looks like a cord. The full paper describes the format and examples.
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.qpu is a research proposal, not an established industry standard, a widely adopted file type or an authenticated ancient encoding system.
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Do quipu data structures outperform conventional ones?
Not across the board. The paper compares selected operations with arrays, linked lists, balanced trees and hash tables. Its experiments included data sets of 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 elements. The C++ tests ran on a computer with a 20-core Intel Core i7-14700 processor, 16 GB of memory and Windows 11. These are the paper’s particular implementations and test conditions, not a universal benchmark. The journal article reports the experimental results.
The authors describe a mixed picture: the quipu structure can do well in some insertion and deletion scenarios and may beat simple linear structures in selected cases. Balanced trees and hash tables generally do better for searching and some other operations. The structure can also require more storage in some configurations. Its plausible strength is handling grouped or hierarchical information, not replacing every general-purpose data structure.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does the paper show that quipus used encryption?
No. The paper discusses reordering elements at different levels of its modern hierarchy as a way to permute or scramble data. Rearrangement can make information less immediately readable, but that is not by itself evidence of secure encryption. Contemporary cryptography is assessed against defined threats and attack methods; the paper’s permutation proposal should not be treated as a replacement for established encryption algorithms, or as proof that the Inca encrypted quipu records.
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What this says about Inca knowledge—and what it does not
The paper is a computer-science proposal, not a finding that settles Andean archaeology. Its value is in showing that organization principles associated with an Indigenous information technology can inspire a modern software design. It does not establish the full meanings of quipus, prove that they performed the applications in the paper, or show that the Inca conceived of computer science as a modern discipline.
The paper, by Dosselmann, Doolittle and Tayal, appeared in Computer and Information Science, volume 19, issue 1, page 47, online March 13, 2026 (DOI: 10.5539/cis.v19n1p47). The journal lists external double-blind peer review for the publication, but one novel proposal is not the same as an archaeological consensus. The journal issue page provides publication context.
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