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Machu Picchu [a] is a 15th-century ... built to ensure good drainage and soil fertility while also protecting the mountain itself from erosion and landslides. However ...
The famous archaeological site of Machu Picchu was a royal estate. The royal estates made use of local labor, but also were staffed by a servant class called yanakunas who were ruled directly by Inca nobles and were outside the ayllu kinship system.
Capping the top of the terrace was a layer of topsoil about 1 metre (3.3 ft) thick. The result was a terrace providing "well-drained rich soil and a level surface for growing crops." [9] At prestigious or royal sites, such as Machu Picchu, finely cut stone was used as the outer (visible) face of the retaining wall. The planting surface of an ...
The Incas are renowned for their precision in stone masonry. The architecture was a means of bringing order to untamed areas and the people of the Andes region. Machu Picchu, located in the Sacred Valley, is an example of the Incas adapting building strategies that acknowledge the topography of the area.
In the Andes, agriculture was limited by thin soils, cold climate, low or seasonal precipitation, and a scarcity of flat land. Freezing temperatures may occur in every month of the year at altitudes of more than 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), the homeland of many of the highland Andean civilizations. [12] Finally, the Andean civilizations lacked money.
The Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu [2] is a protected area in Peru covering over 35,000 hectares. It includes the natural environment surrounding the Machu Picchu archaeological site, located in the rugged cloud forest of the Yungas on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes and along both banks of the Urubamba River, which flows northwest in this section.
The hillsides leading to it have been terraced to provide farmland for crops, reduce soil erosion, protect against landslides, and create steep slopes to discourage potential invaders. Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasising the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs ...
They also employed this mode of construction for freestanding walls. Their ashlar type construction in Machu Picchu uses the classic Inca architectural style of polished dry stone walls of regular shape. The Incas were masters of this technique, in which blocks of stone are cut to fit together tightly without mortar.