The Incas—a civilization that ruled over vast swathes of South America's Andean region in the 15th and 16th centuries—intentionally built Machu Picchu, and other cites, in a location where tectonic ...

A stargazer from the northern hemisphere is overwhelmed by the strange splendor of the southern skies. Southern constellations don’t contain the fascinating myths and stories of their northern ...

To the casual observer, they appear to be little more than multicolored tangles of arm-length strings. But a growing number of experts think "quipus" may hold the secrets of the Inca Empire. The Incas ...

Global warming is not necessarily always bad. A 400-year warm spell in South America fueled the Incas’ rise, British archaeologists reported Monday, helping them build the largest empire that ever ...

A study found the first archeological evidence that the Incas used ayahuasca. A new analysis found traces of the drug in the hair and toes of mummified children sacrificed in rituals. It may have been ...

The saying goes that history is written by the victors. But sometimes that history is written inaccurately by the disease-bearing colonizers who defeated the original (and supposed) victors. Case in ...

Atlas Obscura on Slate is a new travel blog. Like us on Facebook, Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter @atlasobscura. The Incas never invented the wheel, never figured out the arch, and never discovered ...

The growth of the Inca Empire can only be described as meteoric. Though precise dates for its beginnings remain elusive, the realm known to the Inca as Tahuantinsuyu, or "The Four Parts Together," ...

Machu Picchu, the "lost city of the Incas," was not a true city but rather a pilgrimage center symbolically connected to the Andean vision of the cosmos, an Italian study has concluded. According to ...