ABSTRACT
The Andes constitute the world’s longest and most diverse mountain range, extending from Venezuela to Chile and Argentina at high elevations. Anthropologists and historians sometimes focus their research on the central Andes, the area of Inca and preceding civilizations in Peru and Bolivia, with some reference to areas in Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile subject to Inca influence. These are also the areas with modern persistence of Quechua and Aymara ethnolinguistic groups. This chapter recognizes that focus, while also including the entirety of the Andes and neighboring areas as significant to long-term human ecology, past and present.
