Tiwanaku and Wari
Farming at 3,800 metres, on raised fields that make their own warmth
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Tiwanaku on the Altiplano and Wari further north are the two great Andean states between the Moche and the Inca. The raised fields, suka kollus, are among the most effective documented solutions to frost: the water channels act as heat stores and raise night temperatures by several degrees. Plots reconstructed in the 1980s outyielded modern methods at the same altitude. Wari developed the administrative apparatus — roads, provincial centres, labour obligation — that the Inca later inherited and scaled up.
For children
By Lake Titicaca, higher than any mountain in Norway, people built fields laid out as long ridges with water channels between them. The water warmed in the sun by day and released its heat at night, so the plants did not freeze. That let them grow food where it is really too cold.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org