The Inca Indians were the first people to cultivate potatoes in Peru between 8,000 and 5,000 B.C. The Inca people considered the potato sacred; they worshipped them and even buried them with the dead. They always kept a backup supply incase of war or famine. It wasn’t until the year 1536 that the crop began to spread beyond Peru. The Spanish Conquistadors took over Peru around this time; they originally were in search of gold but found something almost more valuable, the potato. They ended up taking the potatoes and transporting them to Europe. According to researchers it’s believed that the introduction of the potato helped put an end to the famine in Northern Europe that was going on at the time. The potato’s were brought to Spain in 1570 but were mostly used to feed livestock. Once the potatoes were …show more content…
The benefits of potatoes include originally allowing for populations that were once starving to now have an easy to grow and abundant food source. This lead to birth rates and population rates doubling in Ireland and Europe when it was first introduced. However, since potatoes were susceptible to disease they also lead to famine and death. People became so dependent on this one food source that when the supply ran dry many people starved, such as the famous Irish potato famine. The use of pesticides and fertilizers can be accredited to the cultivation of the potato in the United States. The Colorado potato beetle threatened the supply of potatoes, leading farmers to use the first pesticide on their crops to help protect them. From here the Green Revolution was born in the 1940’s, which further encouraged the development of pesticides and fertilizers in order to increase the yield of any crop that they could. Another benefit of potatoes is that it can take the carbon dioxide we exhale and convert it into oxygen. This is one reason astronaut’s carry them to space as one source of their food
The influence of Latin culture is prominent in the American world today. Everything from the Latin language to the Roman law is visible in the culture that shapes the way we live our lives in the United States. You can see it by watching the Super Bowl game or even fulfilling your citizen duty of serving on a jury.
The Incas and the Aztecs Before the Spanish and Portuguese "discovered" the New World, there
Bolivia is a small but diverse country in both architecture and culture due to foreign
Potatoes began prospering with the Incan people in the Andes in the form of polyculture. The environment surrounding the Andes was harsh and unforgiving and where one type of potato would thrive, another would perish. The Incan people then changed their needs in order to satisfy the potato and began growing different types of each in different areas of the mountains. This method was extremely successful and resulted in massive genetic diversity for the potato. On the other hand, once potatoes were transported to Ireland, they underwent a change subject to human desires where only one type of potato was grown excessively, otherwise known as monoculture. The Irish had discovered that a single type of potato prospered in their soil and provided substantial nutritional support for the masses, resulting in the cultivation of a single genetic strand. The consequences of this endeavor would come later with the blight, but in this case, the potato had succumbed to the needs of humans. Lastly and more presently in the United States, potatoes have altogether lost their say in evolution by being grown only based on their requirement to feed the many. Certain strains of potatoes have become prevalent due to their need for food purposes, such as “perfect” French fries provided for restaurant chains. Besides
Potatoes have been one of mankind 's most important food staples for the past millennium. First cultivated on the Titicaca Plateau in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia where they formed the basis of both the Inca and Aymara Indian diet. The Aymara Indians developed more than two hundred varietes of the potato at elevations higher than 10,000 feet.
In the 16th century, the Spanish Conquistadors brought the Potato back with them to Spain after their voyage to South America. In Spain it grew slowly in popularity and it was not long before the Potato made its way across Europe. Europeans also gradually gained acceptance of the Potato plant, as it was a good source of food and growing the plant was relatively low maintenance.
Mexico historically has a long, rich and dynamic culture. It was influenced not only by the Native Americans in the Aztecs and Mayans, but also by the earliest European global super power, that being Spain. The Aztec empire thrived across most of modern day Mexico coming to prominence around 1424. The Aztecs were said to have ruled over 5 million people at the time. In 1519 Hernan Cortes led several hundred Spaniards along with other Native allies and conquered the Aztecs. This is significant in the sense that this single event is a defining moment in its history. Mexico defines itself as a “Mestizo” or mixed heritage and culture of both Spanish and Native American influence. For nearly three hundred years Spain would rule and govern
Since 5000 BCE indigenous Arawak, Taino and Ciboney people have inhabited the island where Haiti is located. Around 300 BCE, the indigenous began to settle and establish small farming towns. In these small towns, the main economy was farming, fishing and the trade of various luxury goods such as gold and jewelry. The indigenous people called their island Quisqueya. As the years went by, the indigenous developed their society more. However, their growth was interrupted by Spanish conquest.
The potato is highly nutritious, providing forty-five percent of a person’s Vitamin C needs, which was hard to come by in diets of the time. Being starchy, it provided many two to four times more calories than the Old World grains like oat, wheat, and barley per acre of farmland (McNeill, 1999). The potato was also an ergot-free alternative to rye, which if ingested, led to psychosis, death and reduced birth rates (Matossian, 1989). While requiring more labour to dig up the tubers from below the ground, the potato more than made up for it by being easier to prepare (no need for threshing), and by doubling Europe’s food supply (Mann, 2011).
One last factor contributed to the slow spread of potatoes, the constant and constinet mistreatment of the peasent class by the noble class of Europe. Although this may be easy to overlook a genral mistrust exsisted between the two classes and if rulers attempted to force farmers to plant potatoes often they would assume that it would only be to help those in charge and not themselves. In essence the oppression of European Serfs breed the attuide that nothing that was advanced to be good for the richest people could also have some benefit for
The potato could be served baked, boiled, roasted, fried or made into soups, pancakes, dumplings, souffles, pies and even bread! The potato adapted easily to the cool and damp climates of Ireland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scandinavia. And now approximately 3,000 different types of potatoes are grown in America today! In fact, the potato affected Ireland so much that the population expanded from 3.2 million in 1754 to 8.2 million less than a century later. Now China has become the largest sweet potato producer ever, the potato went national faster than Justin
At its peak, the Inca Empire extended from current-day Quito in the north to current-day Santiago in the south, becoming the largest empire in the word at the time and remaining, to this day, the largest empire to have existed in the western hemisphere. The expansion of the empire came about quickly, with a single Inca credited with expanding the empire by 2,500 miles. It spread out 3,400 miles north to south, composed of about ten million subjects. Despite its large size, it had a smooth-running, complex system of administration. This raised the question that came to be known as the “Inca Paradox” — how could such an advanced and complex civilization not have had a writing system? Some scholars believe quipus, sets of knotted strings used by the Incas to record information, may provide the answer to this question. While the recording of numeral information by quipus has been widely accepted, and has so far not been contested, its possible recording of extra-numeral information has been the subject of debate. The theories concerning quipus center around the numeral versus the extra-numeral content of quipus and, more specifically in the latter category, whether they are a mnemonic device or an actual writing system. In this paper, I aim to analyze and compare the literary and archeological evidence used in support of different scholars’ theses as to the nature of the information contained in quipus.
Have you ever heard of the Inca civilization? Well, the Inca community was a very accomplished empire ; everyone in the empire was unbelievable. The Inca people knew skills many others didn 't know about ; like the Aztecs fought more than they focused on the arts and the Mayan people mainly focused on the arts. Some of their skills were building, art, and farming. Incas built many buildings, like Machu Picchu. The Inca people survived many decades because of their advanced knowledge in farming ; they had many food resources for years ' worth. The Inca civilization worked hard every single day to increase their civilization, from farming to building and dancing to singing.
Potatoes are an essential part of any person’s diet in today's society, they are cost efficient and can be used and stretched in many different ways to ensure consumers get the most 'bang for their buck.' Potatoes are an easily obtainable product now but it originated high in the Andes Mountains of South America. The Andes are ideal for potatoes because they flourish and grow in a cool environment with elevations exceeding 12,000 feet. The Inca of Peru were the first to cultivate the potato around 4,500 years ago; they often worshiped them and even buried them with their dead.
The potato seems to us today to be such a staple food that it is hard to believe that it has only been accepted as edible by most of the Western world for the past 200 years. Our story begins thousands of years ago, in South America—Peru,