Vertical archipelago facts for kids

The vertical archipelago is a special way people in the ancient Andes mountains used to get all the things they needed. It was like having many small "islands" of land at different heights on the mountains. This idea was first described by a smart person named John Victor Murra.

Instead of using money or big markets, these groups often traded goods directly. They also helped each other with work. This system worked best during the time of the Inca Empire.

Scientists have found four main types of areas, or ecozones, at different heights in the Andes. Each zone had different resources.

How People Lived and Traded

Most ancient Andean people did not use markets to trade, unlike some groups on the coast. On the coast, there were traders called mindaláes. People also traded goods directly, which was called trueque. They even used simple "axe-monies" for trade in some areas.

But in the high mountains, groups like the Quechua and Aymara lived in family groups called ayllus. These groups shared work through a system called mink'a. The mink'a system was based on ayni, which means helping each other. They did not use money. Everyone in the village helped with community projects. This could be building, fixing things, or farming together.

This system was about using different environments together. It helped groups get all the resources they needed. Some experts think that trading between different groups might have been more common than first thought. However, there is not much old evidence to prove this.

Since they did not use trade much, people got resources by working together within their family groups. Each group tried to get everything it needed on its own. The Andes mountains have many different environments. So, families would create small "colonies" or send people to different areas for certain crops or animals. The Andes are a young mountain range, so weather changes a lot. This is very important for farming. Only about 2% of the land in the Andes can be farmed.

Different Mountain Zones (Ecozones)

From the dry western coast to the wet eastern slopes near the Amazon basin, there are four main ecozones. People in the high Andes used these zones to get different things:

• The quechua zone is warm and low. It is between 2,300 and 3,200 meters (7,500 to 10,500 feet) high. This area is named after the Quechua people. It was great for growing maize (corn).
• The suni zone is higher, from 3,200 to 4,000 meters (10,500 to 13,100 feet). This zone was good for growing native root vegetables and grains. These include quinoa, kaniwa, and kiwicha. Andean farmers developed over 1,000 types of potatoes. They also grew other root crops like mashua, ulluco, oca, and achira.
• The puna zone is high, cold grassland. It is best for animals like llamas and alpacas, which were raised for meat, wool, and carrying things. Wild vicuñas and guanacos were also found here. Their fine wool was very valuable. Not much farming happened in the puna. But in Bolivia, people used waru waru raised beds. These special beds helped protect crops from frost.
• The montaña zone is wet and has many forests. Not as many people lived here. The plants grown in this zone were usually not food crops. They were things like tobacco and coca. Just like in the puna, people collected things from wild animals here. They gathered bright feathers from birds like macaws.

The Inca Empire and Resources

The Inca government collected taxes in two ways. They took goods and also used a system of shared labor. This labor was managed by local leaders. The shared labor force helped with military tasks and public projects. These projects included building roads, water channels, and storage buildings. Storage buildings were called tampu and qollqa.

The Inca also had special groups of people. Mitmaqkuna were like colonies that produced goods for the state. They also helped protect new areas. Yanakuna were people who worked for high-ranking state officials.

Lands belonging to the Sapa Inca (the emperor), the state church, and royal families were often spread out. This allowed them to get different resources from various ecozones. It is believed that the terraces at Moray were used for experiments. The Inca wanted to see which crops would grow best in different conditions. These terraces were built to create different temperatures and humidity levels. This helped them grow many kinds of crops.

See also

In Spanish: Archipiélago vertical para niños