Rising from obscurity to the heights of power, a succession of Andean rulers subdued kingdoms, sculpted mountains, and forged a mighty empire.

ANTH copy 39088019656784 gift from Paul R. Julian. Introduction -- Discovering the Incas and their predecessors -- Native and Spanish sources -- Explorers and the first archaeologists -- 20th-century ...

Researchers studying an ancient form of writing used by the Incas in pre-Columbian South America have unraveled new clues to a longstanding mystery. The research, undertaken by Professor Sabine Hyland ...

The Inca were a pre-Columbian civilization whose empire sprawled along South America’s Pacific Coast from the 15th to the 16th century CE. Like other Andean peoples, they used khipus (also known as ...

Imagine building a highway system longer than the circumference of the Earth — without wheels, without iron tools, and without modern machinery — through some of the most punishing terrain on the ...

THE OLDEST LIVING CITY IN THE AMERICAS. THIS IS CUSCO, PERU, THE CAPITAL OF THE INCAN EMPIRE. IT’S ALIVE AND IT’S UP THERE AT 11,000FT. THE ELEVATION IS MORE THAN TWICE AS HIGH AS DENVER. BUT ...

For thousands of years, ancient civilizations constructed extraordinary underground tunnel systems for defense, water transportation, storage and everyday life. From the mysterious Iron Age passages ...

In many regions in the Andes, where the Inca Empire once flourished, mummies are frequently discovered. It has become clear that there was a mummy culture unlike any other seen in the world. Why did ...

Learn how ancient DNA and isotope analysis revealed that Amazon parrots were transported alive across the Andes to coastal Peru in a pre-Inca trade network. Long before the Inca Empire rose to power, ...

A new study challenges widespread notions about khipus, intricate cord and knot information-recording systems, based on Spanish colonial-era sources. Reading time 2 minutes The Inca were a ...