Urbanism Prehispanic in The Andes

Abstract

For a long time experts of the subject's origin and evolution of urban life and urban planning, especially Europeans, believed that in pre-Hispanic America there was no real urban life and urban planning itself until after the European conquest. The pre-Hispanic urbanism is one of the most contentious issues in South America, with differing positions regarding the concept, a chronology of the process, the role of supposedly sophisticated city, and the characteristics of social and economic context. The discussion necessarily focuses on the area of the Central Andes (Peru and Bolivia) since the northern part of the subcontinent, including Ecuador between the end of the Formative Period and the Inca conquest, maintained close relations with development in Central America and Mexico, on the other hand, beyond the limits of the Inca Empire none of the prehistoric societies of the American Continent had established systems of urban settlement, there was not any other culture who deserve the adjective urban.