Inca Empire, or Inka Empire, Was the

Inca Empire, or Inka Empire, was the biggest empire in pre-Columbian America. The organizational, political and military center of the empire was situated in Cusco in modern-day Peru. "The Inca civilization came about from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century.

From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used a variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including, besides Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and north-central Chile, and southern Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia" (Inca Civilization, n.d.). The Incas were a powerful group in South America from the 1200s until the middle of the 1500s.

Then Spanish conquistadors, who had better weapons than the Incas, arrived and defeated them. Diseases arrived, too, and killed many Incas. Incas developed fancy irrigation systems, which made their crops grow well. They also raised huge herds of alpacas, llamas and other livestock. Alpaca wool was used to make the finest clothing, tapestries and fancy clothes for ceremonies. The clothes often included designs of animals, birds, gods and shapes. Incas built forts in the Andes Mountains.

Later they spread out, and you could find Incas from the equator to the coast of Chile. Their land included everything from rain forests to plains. They are famous for building great temples, many of which still stand. Exactly how they were built is still a mystery to scientists. The Incas also made beautiful jewelry. They had a lot of gold and silver, so they used it for decorating. They were very organized and became one of the largest, richest and most advanced Native American groups (Incas of Peru, 2006).

The representative language of the empire was Quechua, even though hundreds of local languages and dialects of Quechua were spoken. The Inca called their empire Tawantinsuyu which means The Four Regions or The Four United Provinces. There were a lot of local shapes of worship, most of them regarding local sacred Huacas, but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti - the sun god - and forced its dominion above other cults. The Incas measured their King, the Sapa Inca, to be the child of the sun.

As with all ancient civilizations, the exact origins of the Inca's are unknown. Their historic documentation would be recorded by way of oral tradition, stone, pottery, gold and silver jewelry, and woven in the tapestry of the people (Inca Civilization, n.d.). The Inca of Peru have long held a magical attraction for people of the western world. Four hundred years ago the tremendous prosperity in gold and silver possessed by these people was revealed, then methodically pillaged and looted by Spanish conquistadors.

The fact that a single government could manage a lot of diverse tribes, many of which were concealed in the most obscure of mountain hideaways, was simply extraordinary. "No one really knows where the Incas came from that historic record remains carved in stone for archaeologists to unravel through the centuries that followed. The Inca Empire was short-lived.

It lasted just shy of 100 years, from ca.1438 AD, when the Inca ruler Pachacuti and his army began conquering lands surrounding the Inca heartland of Cuzco, until the coming of the Spaniards in 1532" (Inca Civilization, n.d.). Supreme military organisation and a flair for agricultural invention are usually credited for the rise of the Incas. However, their success may have owed more to a spell of good weather, a spell that lasted for more than 400 years.

According to new research, an increase in temperature of several degrees allowed vast areas of mountain land to be used for agriculture for the first time. As the tree line moved higher up the mountains, the Incas re-sculpted their landscape to maximize agricultural productivity. Although the climate remained dry, the gradual melting of glacial ice meant that they had a constant supply of water to nourish their crops.

The ensuing excess of maize and potatoes freed a large part of the growing population for activities external to food production, such as building roads and structures, and serving in a more and more determined army (Devlin, 2009). A settlement that may have been one of the last refuges of the Incas has been discovered on a remote and rugged Andean peak. "The settlement, on a peak known as Cerro Victoria, where the Incas fled after Spanish soldiers crushed an Indian revolt in 1536.

Artifacts found there indicate that it may have served as a refuge in the years between the revolt and the final Spanish conquest of the Incas in 1572. The nearly inaccessible settlement sprawls over at least 2.4 square miles on steep slopes at an altitude ranging from 8,000 to 11,000 feet" (Maugh, 2002). A sediment record and archaeological confirmation from a high South American valley advocate that the Incas, used conservation practices such as canals, terracing, and possibly even tree planting so productively that they actually re-established degraded farmland. "In about A.D.

1000, shortly before the Inca took over, a suddenly warmer and drier climate was accompanied by an enormous increase in pollen from the alder tree,.