World History
Andes Web Pages - Andes related articles and photo galleries by James Q. Jacobs, covering archeological sites, history, prehistory and cosmology. Includes information on the lost cities of Machu Picchu and Tiwanaku as well as an account of the last Incan ruler, Tupac Amaru.
The photo galleries are of good quality and each picture has annotations explaining what the photograph is about. Each gallery has an accompanying essay as well.
From the site:
Several times during Andean prehistory people coalesced into large political entities. It is therefore possible to consider an Andean civilization and tradition. One indicator of this social and political unity is Quechua, presently spoken by some 10 million people from Ecuador to Argentina, a distance of thousands of miles. Quechua refers to the mountain zone between 3,000 and 11,000 feet in the Andes of South America. Only in historic times has the term been applied to Runa Simi, the language of the Inca civilization. Most of the descendants of the Indians of the Incan realm are the present-day Aymara and Quechua speaking peoples of the Andes. Quechua speakers constitute almost half the population of Perú. Aymara and Quechua traditions are very similar and were unified under the Incas and possibly under previous political centers, particularly Tiwanaku.
The Andean region produced a unique emergence of civilizations at an early date. A pre-agrarian, pre-ceramic adaptation to rich, easily accessible maritime resources coupled with a vertical adaptation to nearby stacked mountain resource zones enabled very early sedentary communities to develop along the Pacific coast. Populations grew to 1,000 to 3,000 person villages and large monumental architecture developed. Contemporaneous to the construction of pyramids in Egypt and ziggurats in Mesopotamia, Peruvian coastal communities cyclically renovated ever larger pyramidal platform mounds. Aspero, a large early center with platform mounds, has 4800 to 5000 BP. carbon 14 dates from late phase construction.
- Pre-inca Civilizations In Andes
Pre-Inca Civilizations in Andes Building on the economic, political, cultural, and ideological-religious developments that shaped Andean prehistory from the Lithic Period to the mid-Early Intermediate Period, the eight centuries between 600 and 1400 c.e....
- Coca
Coca plantCoca (family Erythroxylaceae) is the generic name for several varieties of shrub that grow in the Andean mountains and adjacent tropical forests from whose leaves cocaine is derived. Archaeological evidence from the Valdivia culture of southwestern...
- Machu Picchu: How They Kept The Secret
Machu Picchu: How They Kept the Secret. This site features an Incan expert who explores the riddle of how the center of Inca culture was hidden from Spanish conquistadores. Wikipedia notes that Machu Pichu is a "well-preserved pre-Columbian Inca ruin...
- History Of Peru
History of Peru. This is brief but well written overview to the history of the South American nation of Peru. From the site: When the Spanish landed in 1531, Peru's territory was the nucleus of the highly developed Inca civilization. Centered...
- History Of Bolivia
History of Bolivia. This is a short history of Bolivia. It includes information from the Tiwanakan culture to President Carlos Mesa. From the site: The Andean region probably has been inhabited for some 20,000 years. Beginning about the 2d century...
World History
Andes Web Pages
Andes Web Pages - Andes related articles and photo galleries by James Q. Jacobs, covering archeological sites, history, prehistory and cosmology. Includes information on the lost cities of Machu Picchu and Tiwanaku as well as an account of the last Incan ruler, Tupac Amaru.
The photo galleries are of good quality and each picture has annotations explaining what the photograph is about. Each gallery has an accompanying essay as well.
From the site:
Several times during Andean prehistory people coalesced into large political entities. It is therefore possible to consider an Andean civilization and tradition. One indicator of this social and political unity is Quechua, presently spoken by some 10 million people from Ecuador to Argentina, a distance of thousands of miles. Quechua refers to the mountain zone between 3,000 and 11,000 feet in the Andes of South America. Only in historic times has the term been applied to Runa Simi, the language of the Inca civilization. Most of the descendants of the Indians of the Incan realm are the present-day Aymara and Quechua speaking peoples of the Andes. Quechua speakers constitute almost half the population of Perú. Aymara and Quechua traditions are very similar and were unified under the Incas and possibly under previous political centers, particularly Tiwanaku.
The Andean region produced a unique emergence of civilizations at an early date. A pre-agrarian, pre-ceramic adaptation to rich, easily accessible maritime resources coupled with a vertical adaptation to nearby stacked mountain resource zones enabled very early sedentary communities to develop along the Pacific coast. Populations grew to 1,000 to 3,000 person villages and large monumental architecture developed. Contemporaneous to the construction of pyramids in Egypt and ziggurats in Mesopotamia, Peruvian coastal communities cyclically renovated ever larger pyramidal platform mounds. Aspero, a large early center with platform mounds, has 4800 to 5000 BP. carbon 14 dates from late phase construction.
- Pre-inca Civilizations In Andes
Pre-Inca Civilizations in Andes Building on the economic, political, cultural, and ideological-religious developments that shaped Andean prehistory from the Lithic Period to the mid-Early Intermediate Period, the eight centuries between 600 and 1400 c.e....
- Coca
Coca plantCoca (family Erythroxylaceae) is the generic name for several varieties of shrub that grow in the Andean mountains and adjacent tropical forests from whose leaves cocaine is derived. Archaeological evidence from the Valdivia culture of southwestern...
- Machu Picchu: How They Kept The Secret
Machu Picchu: How They Kept the Secret. This site features an Incan expert who explores the riddle of how the center of Inca culture was hidden from Spanish conquistadores. Wikipedia notes that Machu Pichu is a "well-preserved pre-Columbian Inca ruin...
- History Of Peru
History of Peru. This is brief but well written overview to the history of the South American nation of Peru. From the site: When the Spanish landed in 1531, Peru's territory was the nucleus of the highly developed Inca civilization. Centered...
- History Of Bolivia
History of Bolivia. This is a short history of Bolivia. It includes information from the Tiwanakan culture to President Carlos Mesa. From the site: The Andean region probably has been inhabited for some 20,000 years. Beginning about the 2d century...