The Inca civilization rose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in , and by the last Inca state was fully conquered. From to , the Incas incorporated a large portion of western South America , centered on the Andean Mountains, using conquest and peaceful assimilation, among other methods.
At its largest, the empire joined modern-day Peru with what are now western Ecuador , western and south-central Bolivia , northwest Argentina , the southwesternmost tip of Colombia and a large portion of modern-day Chile , forming a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia. Its official language was Quechua. The Inca Empire was unique in that it lacked many of the features associated with civilization in the Old World. Anthropologist Gordon McEwan wrote that the Incas were able to construct "one of the greatest imperial states in human history" without the use of the wheel, draft animals, knowledge of iron or steel, or even a system of writing.
The Inca Empire functioned largely without money and without markets. Instead, exchange of goods and services was based on reciprocity between individuals and among individuals, groups, and Inca rulers. The Inca rulers who theoretically owned all the means of production reciprocated by granting access to land and goods and providing food and drink in celebratory feasts for their subjects.
The Inca economy, especially in the past, was often the subject of scholarly debate. Darrell E. La Lone, in his work The Inca as a Nonmarket Economy , noted that scholars have previously described it as "feudal, slave, [or] socialist", as well as "a system based on reciprocity and redistribution; a system with markets and commerce; or an Asiatic mode of production.
The Inca referred to their empire as Tawantinsuyu , [ 13 ] "the suyu of four [parts]". In Quechua , tawa is four and - ntin is a suffix naming a group, so that a tawantin is a quartet, a group of four things taken together, in this case the four suyu "regions" or "provinces" whose corners met at the capital.
