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Usually when I go to tourist attractions, I'm disappointed because the pictures look better, when I visited Macchu Picchu and other Inca ruins and remnants I wa

Usually when I go to tourist attractions, I'm disappointed because the pictures look better, when I visited Macchu Picchu and other Inca ruins and remnants I was astounded by how little justice pictures do them. You can't understand the sheer magnitude of what they did until you stand there and see it for your own eyes. They built an entire town on top of an 8000 ft mountain. Parts of Peru and Bolivia (especially around Lake Titicaca) are littered with ruins that are still in relatively good condition, there are terraces dug into the hills that have existed for over 500 years now. All this was achieved by a "stone-age" civilisation.

karmelapple 7y ago
We took the night train into Aguas Calientas, the town that’s at the foot of Machu Picchu. The surrounding area has few lights at night, so we didn’t see much on our trip to AG. We took a day train out of AG, and we were blown away by the tide. There are so many ruins you can catch quick glimpses of from the train car, some very close to the railroad itself. The amount of ruins in Peru is astonishing. And the scale of the Inca’s roads rivaling, and even besting, the road distance of the Romans is a stunning feat that I barely heard of before visiting Peru.
newnewpdro 7y ago
> Parts of Peru and Bolivia (especially around Lake Titicaca) are littered with ruins that are still in relatively good condition, there are terraces dug into the hills that have existed for over 500 years now. My understanding is many of these have undergone substantial partial restoration to preserve them in a somewhat arbitrarily determined state of ruin. So it's not really obvious how well they've aged, they're not left to decay naturally. It was a fairly controversial thing when they decided to start rebuilding Machu Picchu. "Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of how they originally appeared. By 1976, 30% of Machu Picchu had been restored and restoration continues." From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu
soapdog 7y ago
The inca is not a "stone-age" civilization. They arose in the 13th century. They have writing, metal working, amazing agriculture, bureaucracy, road systems, storage, planned cities. They effectively eradicated starvation in the empire with their public storage systems. Calling things stone age is wrong. That period, if you're being gracious, ended roughly 2,000 BCE which is about 3300 thousand years before the Inca started their civilization. If you want to learn a bit more about civilizations in this part of the world, I heartily recommend a book called 1491 by Charles Mann: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491
- oblio 7y ago
  While using the term "stone age" in this case is obviously incorrect, all the human ages depend on the place you're talking about. The Iron Age started in Anatolia around 1000BC but even today there are uncontacted peoples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples) that still haven't reached it. Human society development is not uniform nor universal.

karmelapple 7y ago

We took the night train into Aguas Calientas, the town that’s at the foot of Machu Picchu. The surrounding area has few lights at night, so we didn’t see much on our trip to AG. We took a day train out of AG, and we were blown away by the tide. There are so many ruins you can catch quick glimpses of from the train car, some very close to the railroad itself. The amount of ruins in Peru is astonishing. And the scale of the Inca’s roads rivaling, and even besting, the road distance of the Romans is a stunning feat that I barely heard of before visiting Peru.

newnewpdro 7y ago

> Parts of Peru and Bolivia (especially around Lake Titicaca) are littered with ruins that are still in relatively good condition, there are terraces dug into the hills that have existed for over 500 years now. My understanding is many of these have undergone substantial partial restoration to preserve them in a somewhat arbitrarily determined state of ruin. So it's not really obvious how well they've aged, they're not left to decay naturally. It was a fairly controversial thing when they decided to start rebuilding Machu Picchu. "Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of how they originally appeared. By 1976, 30% of Machu Picchu had been restored and restoration continues." From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu

soapdog 7y ago

The inca is not a "stone-age" civilization. They arose in the 13th century. They have writing, metal working, amazing agriculture, bureaucracy, road systems, storage, planned cities. They effectively eradicated starvation in the empire with their public storage systems. Calling things stone age is wrong. That period, if you're being gracious, ended roughly 2,000 BCE which is about 3300 thousand years before the Inca started their civilization. If you want to learn a bit more about civilizations in this part of the world, I heartily recommend a book called 1491 by Charles Mann: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491

oblio 7y ago
While using the term "stone age" in this case is obviously incorrect, all the human ages depend on the place you're talking about. The Iron Age started in Anatolia around 1000BC but even today there are uncontacted peoples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples) that still haven't reached it. Human society development is not uniform nor universal.