The Andean Glacier and Water Atlas

Living in the Andes

Humans have survived and flourished in the Andes for thousands of years. The oldest, high-altitude settlement in the world, discovered at 4,500 m above sea level in the Peruvian Andes, is thought to date to more than 12,000 years old. This suggests that hunter-gatherers occupied high altitude environments of the Andes just 2,000 years after their initial entry into South America (Rademaker et al., 2014). The process of the domestication of crops and livestock in the region is thought to have started between 8,000–9,000 years ago, with vital crops like potato, squash, cotton, and perhaps maize being grown at this time (Dillehay et al., 2007; Piperno & Dillehay, 2008). This coincided with rapid population growth in the South-Central Andes at this same time (Perez et al., 2017). By the early 16th century, the central Andes were the centre of the Inca Empire, the largest empire the New World had ever seen. About 15 million people were thought to inhabit the Andes mountains (Denevan, 1992). Much of the expansion of the Inca Empire into modern/day Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia

from AD1100 until the arrival of the Spanish in AD1532 is thought to be due to increased crop productivity, linked to favourable climate conditions and a 400-year warming period. This allowed the Inca and their predecessors to exploit higher altitudes and build agricultural terraces that used glacial meltwater-fed irrigation (Chepstow-Lusty et al., 2009). The Andes continue to be a major influence on seven of South America’s fourteen countries in modern times, having left their indelible mark on the culture and language in the region. According to figures from 2012, about 44 per cent (75 million people in 2012) of the total population of the seven countries live within the Andes mountainous region (Devenish & Gianella, 2012). Spanish is spoken across all countries, and a large number of other indigenous languages are spoken across the region. For example, variations of the Quechua language, which have survived since Incan times, are spoken by about 10 million people. Indigenous languages are official languages in Peru and Bolivia, within regions of Colombia and Ecuador, and are recognised in political constitutions within Venezuela and Ecuador.

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