{"id":834,"date":"2026-01-03T15:21:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulheggarty.info\/blog\/?page_id=834"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:53:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:53:32","slug":"andes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/paulheggarty.info\/blog\/andes\/","title":{"rendered":"Andes"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”full_width_background” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”5px” equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” bg_color=”#f9f9f9″ scene_position=”center” top_padding=”2%” bottom_padding=”2%” left_padding_desktop=”1vw” constrain_group_2=”yes” right_padding_desktop=”1vw” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” id=”projects” advanced_gradient_angle=”0″ overlay_strength=”0.8″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_color=”#000000″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” shape_divider_height=”99%” bg_image_animation=”none” shape_type=”straight_section” gradient_type=”default”][vc_column left_padding_desktop=”2vw” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” centered_text=”true” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” advanced_gradient_angle=”0″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” enable_animation=”true” animation=”fade-in-from-bottom” animation_easing=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”advanced” gradient_type=”default”][nectar_highlighted_text text_color=”#a4aa66″ style=”none” custom_font_size=”4vw” font_size_tablet=”6vw” font_line_height=”1.2″ text_direction=”default”]The Andes[\/nectar_highlighted_text][nectar_highlighted_text text_color=”#82437c” style=”none” custom_font_size=”3vw” font_size_tablet=”6vw” font_line_height=”1.2″ text_direction=”default”]Languages, Origins and (Pre)History[\/nectar_highlighted_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” left_padding_desktop=”1em” right_padding_desktop=”1em” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” 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Why the Andes?<\/span><\/h2>\n
The Andes are unique in the human story \u2014 one of the world\u2019s few hearths where farming and a pristine civilisation arose, and here in isolation from all others.\u00a0 This made for a natural experiment in history, played out in an ecological context that is likewise unique.\u00a0 Nowhere else on Earth does ecology transform so swiftly and utterly as where the Andes rise out of a desert coast to over 6000m, then plunge back down to rainforest in Amazonia.\u00a0 And here in the Tropics, from arid west to humid east, this transect races through a panoply of ecologies, liveable here even up to 5000m.<\/h6>\n
The fascination of the Andes runs back through many millennia of prehistory.\u00a0 From the mesmerising stonework of the Incas to the Nazca lines a thousand years earlier, and all the way back to the first monuments and cities of the Americas, on Peru\u2019s desert coast, that broke the mould of how civilisation arose elsewhere.\u00a0 In Peru itbegan not out of farming but out of foraging, hunting and fishing in the teeming waters of the Pacific.\u00a0 A crucial early crop was \u2026 cotton, not to eat but to make fish nets.\u00a0 Even the Incas ran one of the greatest world empires not with writing but with textiles (knotted khipu<\/em>), and without iron, horses or the wheel.<\/h6>\n
My three decades of research here began from another dimension of Andean culture:\u00a0 their native languages, above all Quechua, Aymara and Mapudungun, in fieldwork from Ecuador to Patagonia.\u00a0 Today, some 7 million people still speak Quechua, the greatest surviving legacy of the speech of the entire Americas from before European conquest.\u00a0 The language of Machu Picchu<\/em> (\u2018old peak\u2019) and of the last Inca emperors can still be heard, but is increasingly threatened.\u00a0 And its diversity and origins tells an unsuspected new story, to challenge and enrich what we thought we knew of the Andean past.<\/h6>\n
Quechua goes back long before the Incas, to earlier cultures who together created Peru\u2019s unparalleled archaeological record.\u00a0 But which of them spread Quechua so spectacularly \u2014 when, where and how?\u00a0 And from Colombia to Argentina, how did Quechua come to be spoken by people whose genetic<\/em> origins, however, bear little or no trace of Cuzco.\u00a0 Archaeologists, geneticists, historians and linguists have had a great deal to learn from each other, over ten uniquely cross-disciplinary conferences and symposia and four books that I have convened and edited since 2008.\u00a0 By fomenting a meeting of minds between us, we hope to come together towards a new, fully coherent and holistic understanding of the astonishing prehistory of the Andes.<\/h6>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” bg_color=”#f9f9f9″ scene_position=”center” top_padding=”1%” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”padding-3-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][nectar_responsive_text inherited_font_style=”default” text_direction=”default”]\n

Publications<\/span><\/h2>\n

of mine on this research theme of:\u00a0 The Andes<\/em>[\/nectar_responsive_text][vc_column_text css=”” text_direction=”default”]