What base 12 system?
And how well-developed could their civilization have been when they didn't know about wheels?
We are talking about their mathematical counting system.
You must have a mighty large inferiority complex to want to turn that into passing judgement on a civilization that died out hundreds of years ago.
They were fixing to get ready to get a "round" to it...
And how well-developed could their civilization have been when they didn't know about wheels?
The wheel invention spread by diffusion, invented in Sumaria around 3500 BC; the Brits didn't know about the wheel until approximately three thousand years later. In fact, evidence points to Mexico as the only place that invented the wheel (thought to have been a toy) independent of the Sumarian version. The folks in the Americas didn't know what to do with it, in part probably because they didn't have draft animals.
OTOH, it sure as heck took a long time for ''superior cultures'' to decipher the Incan calculator.
Sumeria. Also the 60 minute hour and the 360 degree circle.
And how well-developed could their civilization have been when they didn't know about wheels?
Wheels really don't have a great deal of utility without draft animals to pull a cart. Apparently, the wheel in all cultures was first used for chariots, carts or wagons. Some of its other uses, such as the wheelbarrow that is actually useful by man-power, didn't come along till thousands of years later. In western Europe the wheelbarrow wasn't used till the middle ages.
The biblical Nefilim (those who from Heaven came). Read the 12th Planet. Some wacky stuff but other claims make more sense than a lot of the stuff we're fed today.
Also 12 is prevalent in religion, as in the 12 gods of the Greeks, 12 Holy Imams of Islam and the 12 Apostles. A little further afield are the 12 signs of the Zodiac, etc. etc.
All the more interesting since you'd think we'd have used 10 from the beginning (fingers on both hands probably the first calculators).
Why does our current numbering system go to 12 before we start using the "teens"? Why not an eleventeen and a twelveteen?
Finanally, veering off topic, just HowinL did the ancients know that the precessional period of earth (slow periodic wobble in the Earth's axis) was 26,000 years? Who is counting?
I'm surprised no one has answered this yet. Think about it. Since the early days of commerce (and even within family units prior to that), people have needed to divide integral numbers of things into portions. To avoid inequity (or squabbles in the case of family units), one needs to group things in easily divisible quantities.
What is the smallest number of items that can be grouped into either 2 or 3 equal piles? The answer is 6. How about 2, 3 or 4 equal piles? The answer is 12. How about 2, 3, 4, or 5 equal piles? Of course, 60. How about 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 equal piles? Also, 60. And how about 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 8 equal piles (we'll leave out lucky 7)? The answer is 360.
Though I have never read it anywhere, the answer always seemed obvious to me that selling things in groups of 12, 60 or 360 (wholesale) was to facilitate retail in smaller equal portions. It also makes figuring out what the subportion is worth easier.
It's all fractions!, which the schools think we no longer need.