Based on archaeological excavations, we know that ancient Andean civilizations emerged at least as far back as 3500 B.C.E. and evolved until the Spanish conquest started in the 15th century. Notably, ...

On the southern shores of Lake Titicaca in present-day Bolivia, more than a thousand years ago, one of the most powerful and enigmatic civilizations of the Andes developed: the Tiwanaku. Considered by ...

The Inca Empire in South America, one of the most powerful pre-Columbian societies, was known for many innovations — such as the architecture of Machu Picchu, an extensive road network, and a system ...

Huayna Capac had a problem: He didn’t like his hometown, Cusco, in the bracing heights of southern Peru. Unfortunately, Cusco was the center of the Inca Empire, and he was the empire’s supreme ruler.

The growth of the Inca Empire can only be described as meteoric. Though precise dates for its beginnings remain elusive, the realm known to the Inca as Tahuantinsuyu, or "The Four Parts Together," ...

A 400-year warm spell helped the ancient Inca to build the largest empire ever to exist in the Americas, a new study has established. Beginning around 1100 A.D., the increase in temperature served as ...

There are several ancient civilizations all over the world that are in ruins today and provide a glimpse into the ancient past when people had a world of their own in these places. These places date ...

Ancient mummified bodies stand guard over windswept deserts near the Nazca and Ica mountain summits. © Charles Rennie/Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis In 1533 the ...

Inca bureaucrats recorded all the goings-on in their bustling empire using knotted cords called khipu, where the position and order of the knots represented numbers. They relied on the khipu system to ...