Early mummies from coastal Peru and Chile
The countries of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile in South America, were the modern countries that occupied the major geographic areas in the Inca Empire. They incorporate all of the extremes of the world’s climatic conditions from the steaming jungles of
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Introduction The countries of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile in South America, were the modern countries that occupied the major geographic areas in the Inca Empire. They incorporate all of the extremes of the world's climatic conditions from the steaming jungles of the Amazon basin to the frigid arctic climates of the high Andean ranges, many of which have permanent snow and an average daily temperature of 0 0c. The western limits border the Pacific Ocean with a meeting of the sixty mile wide Humboldt current hugging the coast from Antarctica to Punto Parifias where it mixes with the warm Equatorial current to form one of the richest ocean fauna in the world. Unfortunately the coastal shore is cut by a series of short rivers running east to west that in many cases only have water a few months out of the year. This results in a narrow strip of coastal desert extending for about 3,000 km along the coast from Tumbes in Peru to Copiapo in Chile, that varies in width from a few kilometers to perhaps 200 at the widest part. The best known geographic area is the Atacama Desert, one of the driest spots on earth. This coastal strip is backed by two to three chains of very high mountains in which peaks reach a height well over 6,000 m, the highest Aconcagua is 6,960 m. Liberally sprinkled among these are a series of active volcanos that produced environmental contamination of much of the water supply in coastal valleys with arsenic carried down by melted snow. Between the chains of the Andes are relatively large valleys many running north/south which are suitable for agriculture, particularly tubers such as potatoes which were early domesticated here. On the coast there is a shortage of arable land, the few green valleys cutting through the desert were initially inhabited by people attracted by the maritime resources. They eventually domesticated cotton and gourds for use in fishing; later they developed food agriculture to feed relatively large populations through the use of irrigation extending into desert areas with large hydraulic projects, but many small communities continued to live off of the rich maritime resources with minimal sources of fresh
K. Spindler et al. (eds.), Human Mummies © Springer-Verlag/Wien 1996
water or even managed to devise means of trapping water from dense fogs that often covered the land. Many areas of the desert had a very high water table and methods of agriculture were devised using garden holes sunk several feet into the ground that could feed limited populations with agricultural products often brought to the coast from other areas such as the Amazon basin through an extensive trade network. Methods of storing and preserving food were developed including freeze drying of the potato. The native indigenous people taking advantage of the varied native flora soon established a rich system of folk medicine with several thousand medicinal plants many of which have been found useful in modern therapy. While the fauna was not as rich as other parts of the world, the horse, initially a small c
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