Climate of the Past Discussions www.clim-past-discuss.net 1814-9340 1814-9359 5 2 2009 10.5194/cpd-5-771-2009 http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/771/2009/ http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/771/2009/cpd-5-771-2009.html http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/771/2009/cpd-5-771-2009.pdf 771 796 2009-03-04 Putting the rise of the Inca Empire within a climatic and land management context A. J. Chepstow-Lusty a.lusty@aliceadsl.fr M. R. Frogley B. S. Bauer M. J. Leng K. P. Boessenkool C. Carcaillet A. A. Ali A. Gioda Institut Français d'Etudes Andines (IFEA), Lima, Peru Centre for Bio-Archaeology and Ecology, Université Montpellier 2, Montpellier, France Department of Geography, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK Department of Anthropology, The University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois, USA NERC Isotope Geoscience Laboratory, Nottingham, UK School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences, University of Cardiff, Cardiff, UK Paleoenvironments and Chronoecology, Institut de Botanique, Montpellier, France Universidad San Marcos and IRD, Lima, Peru The rapid expansion of the Inca from the Cuzco area of highland Peru produced the largest empire in the New World between ca. AD 1400–1532. Although this meteoric rise may in part be due to the adoption of innovative societal strategies, supported by a large labour force and standing army, we argue that this would not have been possible without increased crop productivity, which was linked to more favourable climatic conditions. 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