6 ms·

The last Incan suspension bridge is made entirely of grass and woven by hand

130 points by llambda 13y ago

hdevalence 13y ago
> The Incas never invented the wheel... In fact, the Incans did know about wheels, it's just that wheels are considerably less useful when you don't have any large pack animals to pull things. It's an accident of geography, and the article would be better off without the vaguely racist opening about how the "primitive" Incans were able to do amazing things with fibres even though they never "figured out" this other stuff.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  Not just fibre, as I'm sure you're aware. Their stonework is awe inspiring and seemingly quite earthquake resistant too. I spent hours admiring their walls and terraces.
- scottmagdalein 13y ago
  Racist? C'mon dude.
- adventured 13y ago
  Wasn't racist in the least. Arguing over technological superiority or lack thereof has absolutely nothing to do with race. Would it be racist to say that cavemen were primitive because they lacked the steam engine? No, it's merely acknowledging the fact of their state of technology. And it should be noted, primitive in this sense exists on constantly shifting sand: Americans from 1776 were primitive as well. Saying so is not racist. By our standards today, George Washington was killed by medical malpractice, having been bled to death. It all sounds so barbaric by comparison to what we take for granted now. I'm sure our chemotherapy of today will sound like primitive barbarism tomorrow.
  - milfot 13y ago
    The idea of 'primitive cultures' historically was used to intimate that certain groups were closer to animals, hence sub-human, and usurp them out of their land. Wiki says "The term is generally no longer used in mainstream writing as it is widely considered racist and many groups, including Survival International, have campaigned to stamp it out. The term continues to be used in everyday speech among older inhabitants of former colonial powers and by far right groups, particularly those with a white supremacist ideology." Many (most?) US-icans from 2013 are unable to grow their own food, find clean drinking water, build tools and shelter, hunt, fight etc. Primitive is a judgment against the technology or skills required to survive in the world you inhabit on a daily basis. So if it is has racist undertones and is entirely non-descriptive / non-meaningful.. why use it? Edit: In response to child comment (thanks), to make clear I was referring to the parent comment, not the article. It was the characterisation of 'superior technologies' and 'primitive' people I was responding to.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      "Primitive" may be racist, but the article does not say that.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  In fact, the Incans did know about wheels, it's just that wheels are considerably less useful when you don't have any large pack animals to pull things. The Incans did not have the wheel (when we refer to people having the wheel, we mean with an axle). They used wood beams to roll things around, but that's not a wheel. As far as I know, the only group that had the wheel in the Americas were the ancient Mexicans. Further, devices like wheel barrows and carts are incredibly useful with or without pack animals. Doubly so if you had the incredible manpower that the Incans had where you can easily just use humans to pull them instead of pack animals. Wheels aren't just for hauling things around either, it is hard to express how incredibly useful potter's wheels has been for the last five thousand years.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    I think Incans lived in the mountains and lacked lots of flat ground with which to roll things around. So they did develop some wheel-like devices, but they never applied them in things like wheel barrows or carts because those are just not that useful going up and down mountains.
    - Aloisius 13y ago
      On well worn paths on moderate to even heavy inclines, a cart is still highly effective at reducing manpower necessary to move heavy objects (like the giant stones the Incans moved). The Incans didn't not have the wheel because they wouldn't have found it useful. The Incans didn't have the wheel and axle because it wasn't an obvious invention. All evidence points to the wheel in the "old world" (ugh, I hate that term) being invented in one place at one time. It wasn't obvious. It wasn't simultaneously invented by hundreds of people across Europe, Asia and Africa. It was simply copied everywhere and Europe, Asia and Africa were fortunate enough to be connected.
    - oinksoft 13y ago
      It's not a bunch of jagged rock. The Altiplano, where this bridge is built, is a plateau between two parts of the Andes infilled with sediment over the past 30m years. Wheels would be quite useful there.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Being a few thousand years behind in technological development is nothing on a geological and evolutionary timescale. That such drift would occur without convenient paths for diffusion of ideas and technology is probably unavoidable. Give uncontacted peoples (say the Sentinalese) a few thousand years and they would eventually die out or develop. What is a bit sad is that the world is converging into one basic level of development that limits diversity; e.g. beyond just fibre, the Incans had stone building technology that we have no idea how to replicate.
sbierwagen 13y ago
This is a condensed version of a longer article: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/world_of_wonders/2011/02/the_last_incan_grass_bridge.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/world_of_wonders/2011/02/...
TempleOS 13y ago
I am not impressed. Your new boss is God. http://www.templeos.org/files/TSGodSetUp.zip http://www.templeos.org/files/TSGodSetUp.zip Why don't you do your psy-ops shit on God. God says... ghetto I'm_not_sure hobnob glorious Jesus phasors_on_stun vengeance what_a_mess act wanna_bet programming piety joke bizarre news_to_me repeat_after_me employer I'll_ask_nicely study you_hoser ipod frown I_didn't_see_that It's_nice_being_God Japan don't_you_love_me go_ahead_make_my_day that's_your_opinion what_a_mess angel piety I'll_get_right_on_it insane spending duck_the_shoe where's_the_love vengeance love one_small_step
anonymoushn 13y ago
It's not really a 500-year-old bridge if they install a new one every year...
- rubyrescue 13y ago
  That's actually a famous paradox - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
  - redthrowaway 13y ago
    This isn't that, though. They're not replacing the bridge strand-by-strand; they construct an entirely new bridge each year then get rid of the old one.
    - wanderingstan 13y ago
      In that case, it's like the Ise Grand Shrine in Japan. On the one hand, it's over a thousand years old. On the other hand, it is rebuilt every 20 years by the monks. So how old is"The Shrine"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine#Rebuilding_the_Shrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine#Rebuilding_the...
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        I am going to go with "20 years old". The current shrine is scheduled to be torn down this year.
        milfot 13y ago
        ..and one hand makes no sound, obviously.
    - tantalor 13y ago
      They use the old bridge to bootstrap the new bridge, by pulling the new ropes across. Each bridge is a descendent of the previous bridge. The continuity makes a "500 year old bridge". These bridges were intended to be temporary, whereas stone or metal bridges are intended to be permanent. You are comparing apples to oranges. The new bridge and the old bridge are actually the same bridge, just made with different materials.
beloch 13y ago
In some areas, such as agriculture, modern technology still has much to learn from the achievements of the Incas. The amount of land under cultivation in the Andes is still a fraction of what it once was.
- ghshephard 13y ago
  The Green Revolution [1] advanced modern agriculture far beyond any historical antecedents (rumored or documented) that I've ever heard about - but I would be delighted to hear otherwise. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
- claudius 13y ago
  > The amount of land under cultivation in the Andes is still a fraction of what it once was. And yet I haven’t heard of famines in the past few years – which, given Europe’s history before ‘modern technology’ came along, should happen every now and then with the older methods. Certainly modern agriculture does have some drawbacks, and with an appropriate set of priorities, you can probably claim that it is worse than what we had 200 years ago, but it works surprisingly well at feeding seven billion people while at the same time only requiring a tiny fraction of said seven billion people to actually be employed in agriculture.
riemannzeta 13y ago
The Bridge of San Luis Rey might be my favorite novel.
prewett 13y ago
I read that as "made entirely of glass" and was imagining a rope bridge made out of glass strands. Could be pretty cool at night if the strands were light pipes and you lit up the ends...
- hrjet 13y ago
  Same here. And the mention of "fibre" in the article made me think along the same lines. If I hadn't misread I would have been impressed by the bridge.
Surio 13y ago
Also related, a "living bridge" in India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nongriat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nongriat
- chaitanya 13y ago
  They are quite amazing: http://www.picturesw.com/2012/08/the-natural-root-bridges-of-cherrapunji.html http://www.picturesw.com/2012/08/the-natural-root-bridges-of...
- tezza 13y ago
  These were featured in Human Planet documentary series ( Rivers ). Well worth a look. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Planet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Planet
aarondf 13y ago
But how did they string the bridge across the first time?
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Start by pulling across a string (with an arrow, or by climbing over to the other side with it). Use that string to pull over a cord, use that cord to pull over a rope, use that rope to pull over a bridge.
  - chiph 13y ago
    Modern suspension bridges are started that same exact way.
ryan-allen 13y ago
I thought Incan only looked after domain names?
roel_v 13y ago
"developing a language of knotted strings known as quipo, which has yet to be decoded" Sigh, not this crap again. I bought a book in Arequipa or Cusco back in 2004 or so that described in detail a large amount of quipu that had been found in the area. Just reading the Wikipedia article would have been enough for this author to debunk this Incan mythical nonsense. It's pretty widely settled now that quipu are a system for counting and bookkeeping and is not a writing system in the sense that it translates words or sounds into written equivalents. E.g. you had to know that red knots represented mules and yellow ones baskets of corn (it's obviously much more complex than this). It's still a writing system and indubitably very useful and ingenious for and of the Incans, but we do know a bunch about it.

130 points by llambda 13y ago

> The Incas never invented the wheel... In fact, the Incans did know about wheels, it's just that wheels are considerably less useful when you don't have any large pack animals to pull things. It's an accident of geography, and the article would be better off without the vaguely racist opening about how the "primitive" Incans were able to do amazing things with fibres even though they never "figured out" this other stuff.

lostlogin 13y ago
Not just fibre, as I'm sure you're aware. Their stonework is awe inspiring and seemingly quite earthquake resistant too. I spent hours admiring their walls and terraces.
scottmagdalein 13y ago
Racist? C'mon dude.
adventured 13y ago
Wasn't racist in the least. Arguing over technological superiority or lack thereof has absolutely nothing to do with race. Would it be racist to say that cavemen were primitive because they lacked the steam engine? No, it's merely acknowledging the fact of their state of technology. And it should be noted, primitive in this sense exists on constantly shifting sand: Americans from 1776 were primitive as well. Saying so is not racist. By our standards today, George Washington was killed by medical malpractice, having been bled to death. It all sounds so barbaric by comparison to what we take for granted now. I'm sure our chemotherapy of today will sound like primitive barbarism tomorrow.
- milfot 13y ago
  The idea of 'primitive cultures' historically was used to intimate that certain groups were closer to animals, hence sub-human, and usurp them out of their land. Wiki says "The term is generally no longer used in mainstream writing as it is widely considered racist and many groups, including Survival International, have campaigned to stamp it out. The term continues to be used in everyday speech among older inhabitants of former colonial powers and by far right groups, particularly those with a white supremacist ideology." Many (most?) US-icans from 2013 are unable to grow their own food, find clean drinking water, build tools and shelter, hunt, fight etc. Primitive is a judgment against the technology or skills required to survive in the world you inhabit on a daily basis. So if it is has racist undertones and is entirely non-descriptive / non-meaningful.. why use it? Edit: In response to child comment (thanks), to make clear I was referring to the parent comment, not the article. It was the characterisation of 'superior technologies' and 'primitive' people I was responding to.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    "Primitive" may be racist, but the article does not say that.
Aloisius 13y ago
In fact, the Incans did know about wheels, it's just that wheels are considerably less useful when you don't have any large pack animals to pull things. The Incans did not have the wheel (when we refer to people having the wheel, we mean with an axle). They used wood beams to roll things around, but that's not a wheel. As far as I know, the only group that had the wheel in the Americas were the ancient Mexicans. Further, devices like wheel barrows and carts are incredibly useful with or without pack animals. Doubly so if you had the incredible manpower that the Incans had where you can easily just use humans to pull them instead of pack animals. Wheels aren't just for hauling things around either, it is hard to express how incredibly useful potter's wheels has been for the last five thousand years.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  I think Incans lived in the mountains and lacked lots of flat ground with which to roll things around. So they did develop some wheel-like devices, but they never applied them in things like wheel barrows or carts because those are just not that useful going up and down mountains.
  - Aloisius 13y ago
    On well worn paths on moderate to even heavy inclines, a cart is still highly effective at reducing manpower necessary to move heavy objects (like the giant stones the Incans moved). The Incans didn't not have the wheel because they wouldn't have found it useful. The Incans didn't have the wheel and axle because it wasn't an obvious invention. All evidence points to the wheel in the "old world" (ugh, I hate that term) being invented in one place at one time. It wasn't obvious. It wasn't simultaneously invented by hundreds of people across Europe, Asia and Africa. It was simply copied everywhere and Europe, Asia and Africa were fortunate enough to be connected.
  - oinksoft 13y ago
    It's not a bunch of jagged rock. The Altiplano, where this bridge is built, is a plateau between two parts of the Andes infilled with sediment over the past 30m years. Wheels would be quite useful there.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Being a few thousand years behind in technological development is nothing on a geological and evolutionary timescale. That such drift would occur without convenient paths for diffusion of ideas and technology is probably unavoidable. Give uncontacted peoples (say the Sentinalese) a few thousand years and they would eventually die out or develop. What is a bit sad is that the world is converging into one basic level of development that limits diversity; e.g. beyond just fibre, the Incans had stone building technology that we have no idea how to replicate.

sbierwagen 13y ago

This is a condensed version of a longer article: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/world_of_wonders/2011/02/the_last_incan_grass_bridge.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/world_of_wonders/2011/02/...

TempleOS 13y ago

I am not impressed. Your new boss is God. http://www.templeos.org/files/TSGodSetUp.zip http://www.templeos.org/files/TSGodSetUp.zip Why don't you do your psy-ops shit on God. God says... ghetto I'm_not_sure hobnob glorious Jesus phasors_on_stun vengeance what_a_mess act wanna_bet programming piety joke bizarre news_to_me repeat_after_me employer I'll_ask_nicely study you_hoser ipod frown I_didn't_see_that It's_nice_being_God Japan don't_you_love_me go_ahead_make_my_day that's_your_opinion what_a_mess angel piety I'll_get_right_on_it insane spending duck_the_shoe where's_the_love vengeance love one_small_step

anonymoushn 13y ago

It's not really a 500-year-old bridge if they install a new one every year...

rubyrescue 13y ago
That's actually a famous paradox - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
- redthrowaway 13y ago
  This isn't that, though. They're not replacing the bridge strand-by-strand; they construct an entirely new bridge each year then get rid of the old one.
  - wanderingstan 13y ago
    In that case, it's like the Ise Grand Shrine in Japan. On the one hand, it's over a thousand years old. On the other hand, it is rebuilt every 20 years by the monks. So how old is"The Shrine"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine#Rebuilding_the_Shrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine#Rebuilding_the...
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      I am going to go with "20 years old". The current shrine is scheduled to be torn down this year.
      - milfot 13y ago
        ..and one hand makes no sound, obviously.
  - tantalor 13y ago
    They use the old bridge to bootstrap the new bridge, by pulling the new ropes across. Each bridge is a descendent of the previous bridge. The continuity makes a "500 year old bridge". These bridges were intended to be temporary, whereas stone or metal bridges are intended to be permanent. You are comparing apples to oranges. The new bridge and the old bridge are actually the same bridge, just made with different materials.

beloch 13y ago

In some areas, such as agriculture, modern technology still has much to learn from the achievements of the Incas. The amount of land under cultivation in the Andes is still a fraction of what it once was.

ghshephard 13y ago
The Green Revolution [1] advanced modern agriculture far beyond any historical antecedents (rumored or documented) that I've ever heard about - but I would be delighted to hear otherwise. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
claudius 13y ago
> The amount of land under cultivation in the Andes is still a fraction of what it once was. And yet I haven’t heard of famines in the past few years – which, given Europe’s history before ‘modern technology’ came along, should happen every now and then with the older methods. Certainly modern agriculture does have some drawbacks, and with an appropriate set of priorities, you can probably claim that it is worse than what we had 200 years ago, but it works surprisingly well at feeding seven billion people while at the same time only requiring a tiny fraction of said seven billion people to actually be employed in agriculture.

riemannzeta 13y ago

The Bridge of San Luis Rey might be my favorite novel.

prewett 13y ago

I read that as "made entirely of glass" and was imagining a rope bridge made out of glass strands. Could be pretty cool at night if the strands were light pipes and you lit up the ends...

hrjet 13y ago
Same here. And the mention of "fibre" in the article made me think along the same lines. If I hadn't misread I would have been impressed by the bridge.

Surio 13y ago

Also related, a "living bridge" in India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nongriat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nongriat

chaitanya 13y ago
They are quite amazing: http://www.picturesw.com/2012/08/the-natural-root-bridges-of-cherrapunji.html http://www.picturesw.com/2012/08/the-natural-root-bridges-of...
tezza 13y ago
These were featured in Human Planet documentary series ( Rivers ). Well worth a look. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Planet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Planet

aarondf 13y ago

But how did they string the bridge across the first time?

jlgreco 13y ago
Start by pulling across a string (with an arrow, or by climbing over to the other side with it). Use that string to pull over a cord, use that cord to pull over a rope, use that rope to pull over a bridge.
- chiph 13y ago
  Modern suspension bridges are started that same exact way.

ryan-allen 13y ago

I thought Incan only looked after domain names?

roel_v 13y ago

"developing a language of knotted strings known as quipo, which has yet to be decoded" Sigh, not this crap again. I bought a book in Arequipa or Cusco back in 2004 or so that described in detail a large amount of quipu that had been found in the area. Just reading the Wikipedia article would have been enough for this author to debunk this Incan mythical nonsense. It's pretty widely settled now that quipu are a system for counting and bookkeeping and is not a writing system in the sense that it translates words or sounds into written equivalents. E.g. you had to know that red knots represented mules and yellow ones baskets of corn (it's obviously much more complex than this). It's still a writing system and indubitably very useful and ingenious for and of the Incans, but we do know a bunch about it.