
Inca Road System - benbreen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_road_system
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cl42
For those interested in this, I highly recommend hiking the Inca Trail or
other areas of Peru. You come across ruins _constantly_ and the true scale of
the civilization is really striking.

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toomanybeersies
Usually when I go to tourist attractions, I'm disappointed because the
pictures look better, when I visited Macchu Picchu and other Inca ruins and
remnants I was astounded by how little justice pictures do them.

You can't understand the sheer magnitude of what they did until you stand
there and see it for your own eyes. They built an entire town on top of an
8000 ft mountain. Parts of Peru and Bolivia (especially around Lake Titicaca)
are littered with ruins that are still in relatively good condition, there are
terraces dug into the hills that have existed for over 500 years now.

All this was achieved by a "stone-age" civilisation.

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soapdog
The inca is not a "stone-age" civilization. They arose in the 13th century.
They have writing, metal working, amazing agriculture, bureaucracy, road
systems, storage, planned cities. They effectively eradicated starvation in
the empire with their public storage systems.

Calling things stone age is wrong. That period, if you're being gracious,
ended roughly 2,000 BCE which is about 3300 thousand years before the Inca
started their civilization.

If you want to learn a bit more about civilizations in this part of the world,
I heartily recommend a book called 1491 by Charles Mann:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491)

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oblio
While using the term "stone age" in this case is obviously incorrect, all the
human ages depend on the place you're talking about. The Iron Age started in
Anatolia around 1000BC but even today there are uncontacted peoples
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples))
that still haven't reached it.

Human society development is not uniform nor universal.

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smitty1e
Relevant Zappa =>
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAGVQM6IAKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAGVQM6IAKk)

~~~
hervan
When I read the headline I first thought it was about the song :D (which is a
bit sad considering I’m south american)

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photojosh
I'm around a third of the way through 'The Last Days of the Incas' by Kim
MacQuarrie [0]. It's quite a gripping read, trying to wrap your head around
how (spoiler? ;) a few hundred Spaniards conquered an empire of millions. Can
recommend.

[0]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/354038.The_Last_Days_of_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/354038.The_Last_Days_of_the_Incas)

~~~
s1k3b6
They didn't conquer an empire of millions. They conquered the elites. As best
as we can tell, from mexico to parts of south america, they expertly pitted
groups of native elites against each other and somehow ended up on top. Nobody
really knows how or why they were able to succeed. But even more impressive
than the conquest is their staying power. The spanish essentially took over
the elites and managed to maintain that position for hundreds of years.

Take mexico for example. After the spaniards positioned themselves atop
mexican society 400+ years ago, they never relinquished that position. Even
though ethnic spaniards made up anywhere from 1% to 5% of total mexican
population thoughout the 400 years. Even more astounding is that the spaniards
used their position atop mexican society to outbreed the native population.
66% of current mexican Y chromosomes are of european ancestry, while 90% of
mexican mitochondrial dna comes from native ancestry. Fascinating stuff.

The spaniard conquest of central and south america differed markedly from the
genocidal conquest of north america which is reflected in the genetic makeup
of the populations in the americas.

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29athrowaway
Most mestizos were illegitimate and did not enjoy the same rights as the
Spanish under the casta system.

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spanxx
Do you have any sources on that? As far as I know they had the same rights
given by the Crown (legally at least).

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29athrowaway
Legitimate mestizos enjoyed privileges. Otherwise they had to stay close to
their parents.

But native women could not represent themselves in court so they could not
challenge a Spanish man to recognize their children.

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unlinked_dll
I wonder how the lack of pack animals (aside from alpacas) altered the
development of both the Inca roads as well as modern highways in the country,
which having been on, are nothing to speak highly of (that said, roads in most
countries with difficult terrain and lack of funding suck).

~~~
29athrowaway
A llama can be a more convenient pack animal than a donkey or a mule. Better
temperament too. Alpacas are not viable pack animals.

And ccara llamas were more adapted to high altitudes than a donkey or a mule.

Horses don't work well on mountains.

