The Andes are probably the only place in the world where a great civilization rose and flourished without ever developing a written method of record keeping. Though it stretched over 2,500 km, and involved elaborate economic and cultural exchanges between the coastal lowlands and the mountain heights, Andean civilization found it possible to organize large-scale projects from temples to wars while keeping their accounts by tying knots in string.
As a result, the earlier phases of that civilization are known to us from archaeology rather than history, and though it must have had saints and heroes, high priests and great kings, we will never know their names, and their deeds are but dimly adumbrated in the grave goods they were buried with amid the ruins of their cities.
Still, archaeology has brought a fair amount to light, and Japanese archaeologists have made major contributions. The University of Tokyo has sponsored excavations and research in Peru continuously since 1958, and a show now at the Suntory Museum of Art presents finds from the major site of Kuntur Wasi that date from the earliest stages of Andean civilization, and include the oldest metalwork yet discovered in the Americas.