Editing Inca Empire (section)

=== Antecedents ===
[[File:Tiwanaku1.jpg|thumb|left|Stela in Tiwanaku's Kalasasaya temple]] 
The Inca Empire was the last chapter of thousands of years of [[Andean civilizations]]. The Andean civilisation is one of at least five civilisations in the world deemed by scholars to be "pristine". The concept of a [[Cradle of civilization|pristine civilisation]] refers to a civilisation that has developed independently of external influences and is not a derivative of other civilisations.<ref>Upton, Gary and von Hagen, Adriana (2015), ''Encyclopedia of the Incas'', New York, [[Rowman & Littlefield]], p. 2. Some scholars cite 6 or 7 pristine civilisations {{ISBN|0804715165}}.</ref>

The Inca Empire was preceded by two large-scale empires in the Andes: the [[Tiwanaku Empire|Tiwanaku]] ({{Circa|300}}–1100 AD), based around [[Lake Titicaca]], and the [[Wari Empire|Wari]] or Huari ({{Circa|600}}–1100 AD), centered near the city of [[Ayacucho]]. The Wari occupied the Cuzco area for about 400 years. Thus, many of the characteristics of the Inca Empire derived from earlier multi-ethnic and expansive Andean cultures.<ref>McEwan, Gordon F.; (2006), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=J3WZuTINl2QC&q=Tiwanaku+OR+Wari The Incas: New Perspectives] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221211171520/https://books.google.com/books?id=J3WZuTINl2QC&printsec=frontcover#v=snippet&q=Tiwanaku%20OR%20Wari&f=false |date=11 December 2022}}'', New York, [[W. W. Norton & Company]], p. 65</ref> To those earlier civilizations may be owed some of the accomplishments cited for the Inca Empire: "thousands of kilometres/miles of roads and dozens of large administrative centers with elaborate stone construction... terraced mountainsides and filled in valleys", and the production of "vast quantities of goods".<ref>Spalding, Karen (1984), ''Huarocochí'', [[Stanford University Press]], page 77</ref>

[[Carl Troll]] has argued that the development of the Inca state in the central Andes was aided by conditions that allow for the elaboration of the [[staple food]] ''[[chuño]]''. Chuño, which can be stored for long periods, is made of potato dried at the freezing temperatures that are common at nighttime in the southern Andean highlands. Such a link between the Inca state and chuño has been questioned, as other crops such as [[maize]] can also be dried with only sunlight.<ref name="Gade2016"/>

Troll also argued that [[llama]]s, the Incas' pack animal, can be found in their largest numbers in this very same region.<ref name="Gade2016">{{cite book |last=Gade |first=Daniel |date=2016 |title=Spell of the Urubamba: Anthropogeographical Essays on an Andean Valley in Space and Time |chapter-url=https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319208480#aboutBook |chapter=Urubamba Verticality: Reflections on Crops and Diseases |page=86 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-20849-7}}</ref> The maximum extent of the Inca Empire roughly coincided with the distribution of llamas and [[alpaca]]s, [[Incan animal husbandry|the only large domesticated animals in Pre-Hispanic America]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Hardoy |first=Jorge Henríque |date=1973 |title=Pre-Columbian Cities |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fbQJBAAAQBAJ&q=llama+inca+expansion+colombia+limi&pg=PA24 |page=24 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0-8027-0380-4}}</ref>

As a third point Troll pointed out irrigation technology as advantageous to Inca state-building.<ref name="Gade1996">{{cite journal |last1=Gade |first1=Daniel W. |date=1996 |title=Carl Troll on Nature and Culture in the Andes (Carl Troll über die Natur und Kultur in den Anden) |journal=[[Erdkunde]] |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=301–316 |doi=10.3112/erdkunde.1996.04.02}}</ref> While Troll theorized concerning environmental influences on the Inca Empire, he opposed [[environmental determinism]], arguing that culture lay at the core of the Inca civilization.<ref name="Gade1996"/>