INTRO TO THE ANDES

INTROThe Andes refers to a geographical region that is made up of Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.The Andes has an incredible amount of languages, estimated around 700 languages in Peru alone. The language of the Incas was Quecha, and is the second most important language is Peru today.

THE ANDES MOUNTAINS. THE LONGEST MOUNTAIN CHAIN IN THE WORLD

THE ANDES ARE SECOND ONLY TO THE HIMALAYAS IN ALTITUDE.

YET PEOPLE HAVE SURVIVED AND THRIVED IN THIS RUGGED ENVIRONMENT FOR THOUSANDS OF

YEARS.

ANDESWestern South America contains the world’s driest coastal desert, its longest and second-highest mountain chain, and one of its largest and densest tropical jungles! None of these 3 zones offers a satisfactory balance of water and land for agriculture, hence the indigenous populations have had to develop social organizations in which travel, reciprocity, diversification and control are paramount.

AGRICULTURE The people of the Andes were a predominately agriculture based society. Their approach to growing food in this mountainous region was to create Andenens. Narrow terraces where a variety of food could be planted and harvested.

Andenens also known as terraces

FOODS

It is estimated that the Inca cultivated around seventy crop species. The main crops were potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize, chili peppers, cotton, tomatoes, peanuts, quinoa and amaranth. There are over 200 variety of potatoes in Peru alone!The Inca also raised llamas, guinea pigs and alpacas for their wool and meat.

EMERGENCE OF PEOPLE

IN THE ANDES

10,000 BCThe Andes has been occupied for at least 12,000 years. People in Northern Chile began mummifying their dead around the year 5,000 BC. That’s 500 years before the Egyptians!

Chilean Chinchorro mummy5,000 BC

ARTAndean art as a whole has an emphasis on opposites interlocked, on pairs, doubling, and mirror-image of all kinds. Inca architecture sculpts the earth in opposition of light and shadow. Textiles will feature identical birds, and double-headed creatures.Transformation: all ancient Americans, believed in a universe of transformations. . Cyclical thinking is key to the Andean worldview and will be represented in their art.

TEXTILES

Due to the arid conditions of the Andes, ancient textiles have existed from 5,000 BC. The oldest surviving textiles of the Americas!The Andeans used the back strap loom to create their textiles and focused heavily on the use of geometry, symmetry and colors. The Andes continues to produce some of the most colorful and expensive textiles of Latin America.

ARCHITECTURE The people of the Andes developed a different technique of wall building that was well-suited to an earthquake prone area. Rather that repeated rows of bricks or rectangular stones, they interlock the stones in the different levels (courses) of the wall.The Inca developed this technique to the highest point. Note that here the large stones have been cut to interlock like a jigsaw puzzle. They were shaped so precisely that no mortar is necessary.