horses.gif (10229 bytes) Warriors of the Clouds

Chapter Two:  Andean Civilization

The foundations of the church at Cochabamba are reassembled Inka stonework. U-shaped grooves perhaps evidence the Inka technique of bonding masonry by pouring molten copper into channels passing from stone to stone.

Between A.D. 800 and the second half of the fifteenth century, the era of the Inka invasion, the Chachapoya cleared and terraced hillsides and built their characteristic stone citadels throughout the region.  The scale, distribution, and defensibility of Chachapoya settlements suggests that they were relatively indepenent polities--a confederate of ayllu (clan groupings) engaged in shifting alliances and internecine conflict rather than components of a persistent monolithic state....

Church in Chuquibamba - © Keith Muscutt