Living mountain worlds
Meet communities whose histories connect the Pacific desert, high plateaus, fertile valleys, northern ranges, and Amazonian foothills.
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8 detailed articles drawn from the Andanean culture archive.
Andean archive
The Atacama people, often known today as the Atacameño or Lickanantay, are an indigenous people of the central Andes whose traditional homeland lies mainly within the Atacama Desert and surrounding highlands of northern Chile. The…
Andean archive
The Aymara are an indigenous people of the central Andes whose history stretches back many centuries. Their traditional homeland lies mainly around Lake Titicaca and across the high Altiplano of present-day Bolivia and Peru, with…
Andean archive
The Muisca were one of the most important indigenous peoples of the northern Andes before the Spanish conquest. They lived primarily in the highlands of what is now central Colombia, especially across the Bogotá savanna and the va…
Andean archive
The Quechua people are among the largest indigenous cultural and linguistic populations of the Andes. Quechua-speaking communities live across present-day Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina and Chile, where they have main…
Andean archive
The Uru are an indigenous people of the central Andes whose history is closely connected with the lakes, rivers and wetlands of the high Altiplano. They are best known for communities associated with Lake Titicaca and the surround…
Andean archive
The Diaguita were indigenous peoples of the southern Andes who inhabited parts of what are now northwestern Argentina and northern Chile. They developed complex agricultural communities in fertile valleys surrounded by mountains a…
Andean archive
The Maina, also written Mayna or Maynas in historical sources, were an indigenous people of the western Amazonian region of South America. Their traditional homeland lay principally around the Marañón River and neighbouring waterw…
Andean archive
The Mayo-Chinchipe culture was an early complex society that developed in the upper Amazonian region of present-day southeastern Ecuador and northern Peru. It flourished several thousand years before later Andean states such as Ch…