TechnologySouth America
The potato domesticated in the Andes
Food that grows where grain cannot
See it on the timeline →In depth
Andean farmers grew not one potato but hundreds of varieties at once, planted at different altitudes as insurance against frost, drought and disease. Chuño — alternately frozen at night and trodden and dried by day — gave a storable surplus on which later states' taxation and armies rested. The potato reached Europe after 1500 and there doubled the population within two centuries.
For children
High in the Andes, where it is too cold for grain, people grew potatoes. They also worked out how to freeze and dry them into chuño, which keeps for years. Without that invention the Inca empire would have been impossible.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org