Global History: Inca Civilization

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Global History – Incan civilization At the start of the fifteenth century, large parts of the world were already connected in what is now called the Old World Web, but two smaller webs isolated from this large web existed as well (McNeill, and McNeill, 158). One of those was the American web, consisting of about 40 to 60 million people, of which in South America the Inca were the most dominant (McNeill, and McNeill, 160). What characterizes the time period of 1450-1800 BE for the Inca and the peoples of South America in general is the merging of the Old World Web and the American Web. In this essay I will discuss the place of the Inca in the American Web in pre-Columbian times as well as their place after their assimilation into the Old World …show more content…

The Inca, the most dominant group before the Spanish conquest, had built a large empire that stretched from southern Colombia to north Argentina and Chile, held together by a network of roads because it lacked transport rivers. Their culture, language and religion had spread quickly across the area they controlled, but did not spread outwards and had very little influence outside of their borders (McNeill, and McNeill, …show more content…

This exchange consisted of animals and food crops as well as dangerous pathogens on the part of the Europeans. The new contact with the Old World Web had a devastating effect on the native peoples living there; large parts of the population died of disease, a result of them lacking antibodies against the microbes the Europeans carried (McNeill, and McNeill, 209). Additionally, the remaining population was forced to mine silver for the ever growing Spanish empire, which greatly added to the high mortality rate. (Mann,