Peru, country, South America: Early History to the Spanish Conquest

Peru has been inhabited since at least the 9th millennium b.c., and the earliest known American civilization, sometimes called the Caral-Supe, emerged there in the Norte Chico region by c.3200 b.c. Peru was later the center of several developed cultures, including the Chavín (see Chavín de Huántar), the Moche, the Chimu, and the Nazca. In the 12th cent. a.d., the Quechua-speaking Inca settled around Cuzco, and in the mid-15th cent. they established by conquest a large, well-organized empire that included most of present-day Peru and Ecuador and parts of Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia. Their fortress city of Machu Picchu is perhaps the most extraordinary ruin in the Americas. Around 1530 the empire was weakened by civil war initiated by Atahualpa and Huáscar, who had been designated as dual heirs by their father, Huayna Capac.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Twentieth-Century Peru
• The Late Nineteenth Century
• Independence
• The Spanish Conquest
• Early History to the Spanish Conquest
• Government
• Economy
• People
• Land
• Bibliography

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