ABSTRACT
In the early 16th century, the Sapa Inca Atahualpa presided over a far-flung civilization of perhaps 2 million people and a governing structure spread over mountainous, difficult terrain. The area lacked animals such as oxen, so the Inca never developed wheeled vehicles. Up until its conquest by Spain in 1533, the Inca Empire, at the time of European encounters, was the latest and largest in a long line of complex civilizations in that area of the Americas. Prior to the early 1400s, a people known as the Tiwanaku dominated the region around Lake Titicaca, while the Wari people controlled the area that included what would become the Inca capital of Cuzco. To the north, a diverse array of peoples and cultures utilizing hundreds of distinct languages lived in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The Aztec culture, the largest and most powerful by the 15th century, grew out of the arrival of the Mexica people in the central valley of Mexico in mid-13th century.
