Archaeological Breakthrough via Computer

Hiram Bingham would be proud.

With the help of a powerful computer program, a pair of researchers at Harvard University may have divined the meaning of a set of Incan khipus—intertwined strings and knots used for record keeping and possibly as a written language. Unlike many contemporaneous civilizations, the Incans did not write on paper or on stone tablets, so many archaeologists had turned their attention to finding a Rosetta stone of sorts that might decode the khipus. (Los Angeles Times)