As a former archaeologist, I’m struck by how blockchains fundamentally perform one of the same purposes as finger-counting systems and the abacus.

These systems tended to be heavily used in commercial and public markets, even when written numeracy existed. It is fundamentally associated with the production of a *public* math.
One party does the tallies, performing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, sometimes the calculation of compound interest. The other party and perhaps observers are able to watch and follow along.
Of course, a huge advantage of blockchains is that the derivation and calculation are not ephemeral. But they are also - in theory - more publicly observable than account books that may be costly to reproduce or difficult to access historically.
The devs would call this “auditability” but it’s humbling to remember this is a need that existed in ancient marketplaces in Sumeria, Egypt, the Indus River valley, and China.