>"The Incas lacked the use of wheeled vehicles. They lacked animals to ride and draft animals that could pull wagons and plows...[They] lacked the knowledge of iron and steel...Above all, they lacked a system of writing...Despite these supposed handicaps, the Incas were still able to construct one of the greatest imperial states in human history".
Well, how did they do it?
Are you implying the Incas accomplished nothing and people lie about them?
Lots and lots of cheap human muscle
he brings up a good point. before they broke the Mayan language they made up all this bullshit that they were a peaceful people.
Once they cracked it they realized they were just as warlike as the aztecs and practiced human sacrifice
The problem with these oral cultures is we dont know what they were really like. So we fill in the blank with modern day bullshit
You can see this bullshit in action with the viking series
Some environments do not need things like iron to support civilization.
I'll repost an answer I gave to a similar question a while ago.
They had really, really good roads (the Inca were master stonemasons), sturdy pack animals (llamas and some alpacas) to transport cargo for hundreds of miles, a competent and literate bureaucracy that could tabulate crop yields and population data through magic fucking knots, messengers that could relay a message from Quito to Cuzco in a few days ON FOOT, and a network of local storehouses-cum-garrisons to accumulate food, collect tribute, house soldiers, and withstand disasters.
Under their "mitma" policy, they uprooted rebellious people groups under them and deported them to far flung corners surrounded by hostile neighbours of their empire (where they would eventually grow to depend on the Inca).
They extracted tribute in the form of food, textiles, or conscripted labor (to build their roads and storehouses) from their subjects.
But they also rewarded their subjects with copious amounts of beer during festivals.
They also forced vassals to send their children and heirs to the capital at Cuzco to be educated in Inca ways (and also act as hostages).
Without exaggeration, they were basically the USSR of their time. They also lasted roughly the same amount of time too.
Pic related.
Basically it was potatoes.
>wheeled vehicles
not a requirement for a state to form, and not useful in mountainous terrain.
>lacked animals
llamas and alpacas were perfectly capable of hauling up and down slopes, and were more useful than a wagon pulling animal would be to them
>lacked iron and steel
so did bronze age civilizations
>lacked a system of writing
good, writing ruined everything.
>You can see this bullshit in action with the viking series
I've never watched it cause I don't have cable. How bad do they romanticize vikings?
>practiced human sacrifice
They practiced bloodletting for most of their history
IIRC the book "The Impact and Social Influence of the Potato" notes that pottery shows that farmers would do self-mutilation to try and get heavenly favor for their crops. Stuff like cutting off bits of the nose or ears.
Pizarro was a mistake.
>lacked a system of writing
But they had that, they strung beads or some shit on strings for messages.
It's "the scriptwriter probably burned down churches and made shitty thrash metal in the 90s" bad
Fucking horrible. Imagine some edgy faggot Michigan white kid's fantasy of being the descendant of warlike Nords and muh Vikings while he lives in a shit house in an economically depressed Rust Belt town that will fade into memory during his lifetime, to be replaced by trailer parks and drive thru liquor stores.
Praise Inti
Alpacas > llamas
Who is the rightful successor to the Inca Empire?
The Ottomans
Perú has become too western
Ecuador has become too african
Bolivia has the feeling but they respect minor cultures instead of conquering them
>Ecuador has become too african
Don't fall for the Esmeraldas/Chota footballer meme. The sizeable majority of Ecuadorians are still mestizos with some castizos living in the suburbs outside Quito. Though I will admit there are very few pure or near-pure Andean Injuns left.
>Bolivia has the feeling but they respect minor cultures instead of conquering them
Bolivia is Aymara and their ancestors were reluctant vassals to the Peruvian Quechuas of the Tawantinsuyu
The Inca Empire died with Tupac Amaru and it's holdings are now forever Castilian. I do not think such a state can ever be succeeded. Even spiritually.
Well, to be fair, they didn't use human sacrifices nearly as much as the aztecs. Generally, they would use animal sacrifices most of the time. Human sacrifices were used every few years or so, and even then, it was just one dude, not literally thousands like the Aztecs. Hell, the Aztecs had to set up their entire diplomatic system on gathering enough slaves for the sacrifices.
>one of the greatest imperial states in human history".
thats a stretched.
It was a gloried tribal confederation with impressive architecture
>It was a gloried tribal confederation with impressive architecture
So like pretty much every state in history before the fuedal era?
Also it WAS at the time the largest state in terms of overall land it claimed, even larger than Ming China.
Cocaine. They used runners who chewed cocaine leaves as they jogged between stops to carry internal bureaucratic type messages.
Considering they were neolithic in technology, they did better than ANY other culture, in the world, ever. The Old World didn't see its first empires until the Bronze Age, and ofc had access to horses.
Perhaps Peruvian nationalists that look to their indigenous past?
The Incas had bronze, but usually only nobles and elite soldiers used bronze weapons and armor.
>Considering they were neolithic in technology, they did better than ANY other culture, in the world, ever.
OK, but how much of that is because everybody else who got into the civilization game also moved on from neolithic technology?
Fair play to them for accomplishing what they did given the tools they gave themselves to do it, I guess, but the question is, why didn't they do what everybody else did, and advance technologically as they grew a civilization?
They did advance technologically in some respects. They were very good at crop breeding, trepanation (90% survival rate), bridge construction, terraced agriculture, and planned economies. Actual civilization isn't like some sort of strategy game where you need to advance to the the bronze age to gain access to crop rotation.
they were one of the most totalitarian states ever
Bear in mind the Inca Empire was only 100 years old when the Spanish arrived, they made considerable progress during that short time frame and where well on their way to a proper Bronze Age.
Coca=/=cocaine
The Inca inherited a tremendous amount of administrative background from previous empires that dotted the landscape. They had fantastic bureaucratic control and a strong central state that was able to maintain cohesion.
There's not a great "how" answer beyond just listing out what was done. History isn't like a video game where you need X "tech points" to achieve upgrade Y.
The Europeans practiced human sacrifice as well at the time, they just called it different things. You know those big ol' gallows with public viewing areas?
That's not to say it's good or bad, just that it wasn't that uncommon throughout the world at the time and certainly isn't a notable distinguishing factor between the Mesoamerican civilisations and their conquerors.
>even larger than Ming China
No it definitely wasn't
Ming China: 1415[1] 6,500,000 km2
Inca Empire: 1527 approx. 2,000,000 km2
>The Europeans practiced human sacrifice as well at the time, they just called it different things
Put down the crack pipe.
>he thinks that human sacrifice is the same thing as execution
it's not, by the way
It's a parallel made in many history texts about mesoamerican sacrifice, feel free to whine about it. I'm not exactly making a novel observation here.
I currently have an erection due to this post.
You are too stupid for words.
How is it different, exactly?
Just so you know... The Mesoamerican (the Nahual peoples, aka Mayans, Olmecs, Aztecs), the Interamerican (the Chibcha tribes), and the Andinoamerican (the now know as the Incas) peoples all had copper and bronze, which they used for tools, different kind of items, and even weapons. What American cultures didn't have was steel; in the case of the Chibchas, from today's Costa Rica to Colombia, they were pretty good in terms of metallurgy, specially if you consider how they were not that developed in other areas.
This, the lower central american people in Panama and Costa Rica knew how to work gold-copper well.
I don't understand why people think it's so surprising that they didn't have the wheel. So what? What's really mind-blowing is they had a money-less, centrally planned economy that spanned an area comparable to the Roman Empire.
They had the wheel, they used it on tools and toys. Using carriages or other shit like that on the middle of the Andes was fucking crazy, specially when the strongest animal you have besides humans is a llama or an alpaca.
none of this is super-spectacular, just different
You can say that about literally any civ before the industrial revolution.
Fuck, you could even say that about modern Western civilization.
Fukin died
Determination allows humans to achieve anything. The comfort of our modern existence has just made us weak. So the achievements of past societies can seem extraordinary from that perspective.
The one is sacrifice, the other is not. Its really not that hard a concept to grasp mate
Lack of metal doesn't presume lack of civilisation.
>>lacked a system of writing
>good, writing ruined everything
fucking Aristotle
>guy is killed in ritualistic way
vs
>guy is killed in ritualistic way
???
Yes it does. There were barely any civilizations that didn't use metal, generally only the handful that existed before metallurgy became a thing.
and?
Why do people hate reductionism so much? Don't you want to find out what cultural or personality differences really made a difference? Or do you want to go "oh wow, this ancient civilization achieved the oustanding cultural practice of forcing entire aubergines into their rectums, wow so amazing truly wonderful woo hoo" while everyone pulls a poker face.
>guy is killed to appease some spooks
>guy is killed as a punishments because he acted against the spook
are you really to dense to understand the difference?
Killing convicts is in no way comparable to killing innocents to appease gods.
>(((innocents)))
I keep waiting for the autistic Mexican tripfag appear and say they used gnostic Aryan flying saucers or some shit.
except it is amazing that the incas constructed an empire without large draft animals, a written language and wheels. also, you're example is shit because you made that ridiculous practice up.
>a parallel made in many history texts
gee I wonder why.
>without large draft animals, a written language and wheels
Why the fuck do you need any of these for an empire
Sure, they're useful and make things more efficient, but aren't necessary in any way and making an empire without them isn't impressive.
Because historians seek to understand?
This is a history board, understanding the work of historians is hopefully a part of it.
Well doing the level of administration that was done without writing is certainly impressive and helps drive the desire to understand how quipu worked.
Large empires do need certain things, including quick transportation and the ability to maintain a bureaucracy in some way, and it's not an invalid concern to seek to understand how these were achieved.
The lack of a wheel isn't particularly relevant in and of itself, nor is the lack of large draft animals in and of itself, but it does mean that questions like "how did the empire manage to cultivate sufficient food to ensure large state projects could still be completed" don't have their usual answers and so are interesting to investigate.
Were potatoes the mesoamerican corn?
Jared Diamond BTFO
>history textbooks
>work of historians
they attempt to draw parallels between the execution of criminals and human sacrifice to the sun god because they want to make one culture look less barbaric, and one culture look more barbaric.
They don't do the same for Celts, who burnt hundreds of people alive in massive wicker effigies. They don't compare Inca human sacrifice with Japanese execution practices.
Open your fucking eyes.
Yes, if by "mesoamerican" you mean "south American" and by "corn" you mean "potatoes".
Corn was the Mesoamerican corn.
You know what would be amazing? If they made a dedicated effort to breed large draft animals from llamas and developed a written language and wheels. However there must have been reasons why they did not, I reserve judgment and assume they were about as "amazing" as everyone else.
>you're example is shit
It is a good example. Think about it. Can you fit an aubergine into your asshole? You can't (I hope). So why won't you admit that it is amazing?
In the same way building an empire with slightly different methods of transportation and record keeping isn't amazing. It should pique your interest by all means, but it won't compel me to get excited and jizz all over the book I am reading right there in the library while making a neurotic animalistic growling noise. Why did you do that?
Errrr, type "human sacrifice public educations" or something into google scholar and you'll see that exactly that is done.
You don't understand why the parallel practices of a culture and the one encountering them and condemning them might be of more interest in general?
>the parallel practices of a culture and the one encountering them
You're begging the question again. You have yet to establish that human sacrifice and public executions are cultural parallels, and yet insist that they are.
>muh ritual
What is the difference between religion and civics?
>type "human sacrifice public educations" or something into google scholar and you'll see that exactly that is done
this sentence restructure please.
These are the people you argue with on Veeky Forums
I'm not begging the question, I explained why it's not surprising there'd be more interest in the similarity between the practices of mesoamerican cultures and the european cultures encountering them than there would be between that of mesoamerican cultures and, say, the practices of the Japanese from whatever time period (do note, similar != identical)
I offered to "establish it" by having you use google scholar to look at the numerous general surveys that compare various cultural practices of democide that play comparable roles in the cultures they're home to, which includes your desired comparisons between mesoamerican practices and non-european ones.
At a certain point "I've never encountered this idea in the work of historians, I am going to stubbornly deny that such a thing exists because it runs contrary to my intuitions" really does devolve into pure autistic shrieking.
Feel free to complain more instead of bothering to do a little research. Like I said earlier in the thread, it's not a very novel observation and it's pretty widely accepted that there are serious parallels there. You can look it up or you can choose not to, it's ultimately up to you.