Andean agricultural terraces (andenes)
Terrazas agrícolas andinas (andenes) con riego
- Date
- c. 500 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Colca Valley and Cuzco, Peru
- Credited to
- Pre-Inca Andean cultures (Wari, Tiwanaku); expanded by the Inca
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Stepped platforms with stone retaining walls, layered drainage fill and irrigation channels, turning steep hillsides into stable fields with stepped microclimates. The basis of the world's most extensive mountain agriculture.
Similar terraces arose independently in Yemen, the Philippines (Ifugao), China and the Mediterranean; the early Andean dating is imprecise.
What it led to
- Cultivation of maize, potato and quinoa across vertical ecological tiers
- Dense high-altitude societies (Tiwanaku, Cuzco) and state surpluses
- Erosion control and communal water management (ayllu)
- Agricultural experimentation (Moray) and selection of thousands of varieties
Built on
- Canal irrigationc. 6000 BCE
- Potato domesticationc. 5500 BCE
- Potato and maize farming
- Andean stonemasonry
- Irrigation canal
Made possible
- Raised fields (waru waru)
- Inca storehouses
- Farming across ecological tiers