History Of The Andes Mountains

Peru is located in western South America and it shares borders with Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador and the South Pacific Ocean. Peru is about 1.28 million square kilometers. There are three major regions in Peru: a narrow coastal belt, the wide Andean mountains and the Amazon Basin. The coast is mostly a desert, but contains Peru's major cities. The Andes has two main ranges - Cordillera Occidental and Oriental. Oriental includes Peru's highest mountain called Huascaran, it a peaks out at 22,200ft. On the east side is the Amazon Basin, a region of tropical lowland, the water there is carried out by the Maranon and Ucayali rivers.

There were several ancient civilizations that built their cultures around their geography. The Incas were among one of those ancient civilizations. They had amazing ingenuity to make use of their environment. The Incas built agriculture terraces and they had a complex irrigation system. And some crops that we use today. The physical environment of the Incas affected and shaped their civilization.

The most significant physical geographical factor that contributed to the development of the Ancient South American society of the Incas was the Andes Mountains. The Andes are the longest mountain range and one of the highest with its tallest peak, Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, topping out at 22,841 feet (Zimmermann, 2013). The Inca Empire had settlements that ranged from sea level, to its center of government in Cusco at an altitude of 11,200. Despite these difficulties, the Inca people thrived, and managed to create trails, water-ways and agricultural practices that remain in use to this day.

     The Andes Mountains rise through much of central Ecuador. About half the people live in the valleys and on the plateaus of the Andes. Quito, Ecuador's capital, lies more than 9,000 feet (2,700 meters) above sea level on an Andean plateau. A flat, partly forested, tropical plain extends west of the Andes along the Pacific Ocean. This coastal plain is developing faster than any other part of the country. About half the Ecuadorian people live there.

The most significant physical geographical factor that contributed to the development of the ancient South American society of the Incas was the Andes Mountains. The Inca Empire had villages and cities throughout the Andes Mountains. Some of these settlements were as low as sea level and their capital, Cusco, was at an altitude of 11,200 feet. The Andes are considered some of the longest and highest mountain ranges. In fact it’s tallest peak, Mount Aconcaqua, in Argentina, tops out at 22,841 feet (Zimmermann, 2013). Despite the fact that people were traversing mountains the people flourished creating trails, aqueducts and agricultural practices that still exist today.

1. Before Francisco Pizarro began the Spanish conquest in 1532, the Incan empire dominated the Andes Mountain region. An emperor who demanded strict obedience ruled the land. All business was run by the state, which could draft citizens for its projects. The Inca, terracing the landscape and irrigating the crops, farmed the mountainsides. The Inca were brilliant engineers, whose roadways included bridges. The city of Machu Picchu is an example of their skill with tools like the plumb bob and wooden roller, which they used for in heavy construction. Hundreds of years after their civilization was subdued by the Spanish, the descendants of the once-dominate Incas make up about 50 percent of Peru’s population.

In the Heart of the Andes’ painting by Robert Seldon Duncanson, an immensely deceptive illusion is cultivated. This 1871 naturalistic landscape entices the viewer’s senses and lends itself to being part of the “beautiful” which is _____. This painting is a rendition of an earlier work done by Frederic Church in 1859. The formal qualities present in Heart of the Andes appear to fabricate an amicable symbiotic relationship between man and nature with motifs of God acting to legitimize human fallibility.

The geography of Bolivia is unique among the nations of South America. Bolivia is one of two landlocked countries on the continent (the other being Paraguay), and Bolivia is more urban (67%) than rural (23%). The main features of Bolivia's geography include the Altiplano, a highland plateau of the Andes, and Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake on Earth, which is shared with Peru.

The Andes Mountains run through the centre of Peru. West of the Andes is the Atacama Desert which is one of the driest regions in the world. East of the Andes is rainforests and jungles. The Peruvian Amazon cover sixty percent of the country.

“ Our group was always united. When the spirits of one went down, the rest made sure to raise them” (Read 362). The survivors unified as a group to act as role models for each other. Alive, The Story of the Andes Survivors is all about the strength it took for the survivors to guide one another and to accomplish the mission to survive.

The physical geography of Latin America is important to its history and settlement. One of the most noted physical feature is the Andes Mountains. The mountains run the length of the Pacific Coast of the South America continent. The Inca Civilization benefited from the Andes. They settled in the central part of the Andes, and grew their culture there until the Spaniards conquered them. The Amazon Basin dominates the interior of the continent and is drained by the Amazon River, the largest river in the world. The Amazon Basin is the largest drainage basin of Earth. The Pampas Grasslands is another physical feature that extends through the mid-latitudes of Argentina. The Patagonia is at the tip of South America and is a cold, windswept region.

For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance: Pachacuti: An ambitious and powerful ruler who took the throne in 1438; the Inca seized all of Peru and later moved into adjacent lands under his leadership. Ayllu: Prolonged family group; assumed tasks too large for a single family (i.e., constructing irrigation canals, cutting agricultural terraces into sheer hillsides); stored food and other stocks to deal out among members during tough times. Mita: Labor tribute; needed all able-bodied citizens to work for the state a determined amount of days every year; workers may labor on state farmlands, yield craft

The Inca civilization was one of the greatest of its time. It was a civilization that

All the farms of Peru did not have any higher advancements in tools like animals and iron tools other than themselves(the people)“Incas built their empire without the wheel, powerful draft animals, iron working, currency or even what we would consider to be a writing system.”to help with the growth of corn, beans, and potatoes. Since the land of Peru consists of various land structures the Incas had to invent a new farming technique that allowed the Incas to grow plants on the side of mountains which was called terrace farming. Terrace farming contains, building farms on side of mountains called terrace farming which allowed running water off the side of cliffs to go through a passage to plants that enabled a more superior way to farm. Terrace farming let no one starve in the empire “Nobody went hungry in the Inca empire. The commoners ate little meat, but all people ate well.” many Incas were well fed and got to live a happy life. Farming lead to new things as that was only the start. Farming guided the Incas towards new ideas to make farming more effective towards their crops so they invented the calendar using the sun and moon as direction to calculate time”Incas had a calendar based on the observation of both the Sun and the Moon, and their relationship to the

Inca Successes By: Chloe Medina and Richael Webb One of the Inca successes is farming. According to My Capstone Library the Inca lived in many different places like the rainforest and in the mountains, they had to make many different things to farm crops. The lands that they were living in were either too dry, too steep or covered with trees. One way that they used to farm were terraces. They built these into the sides of mountains using stone bricks to strengthen them.