Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Rice terrace in the Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. In agriculture, a terrace is a piece of sloped plane that has been cut into a series of successively receding flat surfaces or platforms, which resemble steps, for the purposes of more effective farming. This type of landscaping is therefore called terracing. Graduated terrace steps are commonly ...
Agriculture terraces were (and are) common in the austere, high-elevation environment of the Andes. Inca farmers using a human-powered foot plough. The earliest known areas of possible agriculture in the Americas dating to about 9000 BC are in Colombia, near present-day Pereira, and by the Las Vegas culture in Ecuador on the Santa Elena peninsula.
The building of the rice terraces consists of blanketing walls with stones and earth which are designed to draw water from a main irrigation canal above the terrace clusters. Indigenous rice terracing technologies have been identified with the Ifugao's rice terraces such as their knowledge of water irrigation, stonework, earthwork and terrace ...
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 .
Behind the retaining wall, the bottom one metre (3.3 ft) was filled with large stones, overlaid by a layer about 1 metre (3.3 ft) thick of sand or gravel. 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."
Locals up to this day still plant rice and vegetables on the terraces, although more and more younger Ifugaos do not find farming appealing, [6] often opting for the more lucrative hospitality industry generated by the terraces. [7] The result is the gradual erosion of the characteristic "steps", which require constant reconstruction and care.
By 500 BC, there is evidence of intensive wetland rice agriculture already established in Java and Bali, especially near very fertile volcanic islands. [9] Rice did not survive the Austronesian voyages into Micronesia and Polynesia; however, wet-field agriculture was transferred to the cultivation of other crops, most notably for taro cultivation.
The Chavín, a Peruvian preliterate civilization, established a trade network and developed agriculture by 900 BCE, according to some estimates and archeological finds. Artifacts were found at a site called Chavín de Huántar in modern Peru at an elevation of 3,177 meters (10,423 ft). The Chavín civilization spanned from 900 to 300 BCE.