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Inca administration constructed and renovated very complex ancient networks of roads and bridges, known as Qhapaq Ñan, in order to improve the ability of the Inca to exert imperial authority. Inca engineers improved upon earlier cultures' highways, such as those built by the Chimu, Wari, and Tiwanaku, among others. [5]
The ayni was used to help individual members of the community in need, such as a sick member of the community. The Minka or teamwork represented community service and the Mita was the tax paid to the Inca in the form of labor. The Inca did not use currency, economic exchanges were by reciprocity and took place in markets called catus.
The Inca Empire was unique in that it lacked many of the features associated with civilization in the Old World. Anthropologist Gordon McEwan wrote that the Incas were able to construct "one of the greatest imperial states in human history" without the use of the wheel, draft animals, knowledge of iron or steel, or even a system of writing. [9]
Inca agriculture was the culmination of thousands of years of farming and herding in the high-elevation Andes mountains of South America, the coastal deserts, and the rainforests of the Amazon basin. These three radically different environments were all part of the Inca Empire (1438-1533 CE) and required different technologies for agriculture .
Inca leaders kept records of what each ayllu in the empire produced but did not tax them on their production. They instead used the mita for the support of the empire. The Inca diet consisted primarily of fish and vegetables, supplemented less frequently with the meat of cuyes (guinea pigs) and camelids. In addition, they hunted various animals ...
The Inca state had no separate judiciary or codified set of laws. While customs, expectations, and traditional local power holders did much in the way of governing behavior, the state, too, had legal force, such as through tukuy rikuq (lit. "he who sees all"), or inspectors. The highest such inspector, typically a blood relation to the Sapa ...
This week, explore decoded words from charred ancient scrolls, meet heroic frog daddies, see Grand Canyon-size lunar features, and more.
A kuraka (Quechua for the principal governor of a province or a communal authority in the Tawantinsuyu [1] [2]), or curaca (Hispanicized spelling [3]), was an official of the Andean civilizations, unified by the Inca Empire in 1438, who held the role of magistrate, on several hierarchical levels, from the Sapa Inca at the head of the Empire to local family units.