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The origin of terraces or andenes in the Andes is poorly understood, but they were being built by 2000 BCE. Agriculture became essential for the subsistence of a growing population after 900 BCE. People of the Huarpa culture and the later Wari culture (500–1000 CE) built terraces into the hillsides of the Andes in Peru. [4]
[17] [29] These terraces also helped to insulate the roots of plants during cold nights and hold in the moisture of the soil, keeping plants growing and producing longer in the high altitudes. [17] [29] Tipón was a location in the Inca Empire that was an estate for Inca nobles. It had terrace walls that were anywhere from 6 to 15 feet tall. [30]
The earliest civilizations were on the hyper-arid desert coast of Peru. Agriculture was possible only with irrigation in valleys crossed by rivers coming from the high Andes, plus in a few fog oases called lomas. In the Andes, agriculture was limited by thin soils, cold climate, low or seasonal precipitation, and a scarcity of flat land.
These crops are arranged within the mountains and plateaus of the Andes in four distinct landscape-based units described as Hill, Ox Area, Early Planting, and Valley which overlap one another in a patchwork-styles of plateau surfaces, steep slopes, and wetland patches. [3]
The first recorded accounts of Inca water transportation structures came from Spanish conquistadores in the sixteenth century. One such explorer was Pedro Cieza de León.In his published chronicles detailing his travels through Peru, he noted seeing a large wall as he headed east from Cuzco, which scholars argue he was referring to the aqueduct at the Piquillacta archeological site.
In the Andes, a long mountain range with a great variety of ecozones and resources, the need to access the proper lands for specific crops or animals meant lineages created miniature colonies or sent seasonal migration (such as transhumance) in different ecoregions. As the Andes are a relatively young mountain range, there is especially great ...
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A series of terraces along a river. The oldest terraces (T1) are higher standing than the younger terraces (T3). The present floodplain (T4) will soon become the youngest terrace surface as the river incises. Terraces can be formed in many ways and in several geologic and environmental settings. By studying the size, shape, and age of terraces ...