MASS MARRIAGES

Marriage by decree was the norm for ordinary people within the Inca empire. Although nobles often had several wives, commoners were limited to one. Furthermore, the state dictated whom and when each commoner could marry. Each year local chiefs assembled all eligible inhabitants (all men over 24, all women over 18), separating them by sex into lines before calling them up to be paired off.

PRINCIPAL PRE-COLUMBIAN CIVILIZATIONS

The arrival of Europeans in the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries brought to an abrupt end a series of cultures that dated back more than 2,000 years. These civilizations are known as pre-Columbian, from the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506).

CHAVIN

Earliest highly developed Peruvian culture, existing from about 850 to 200 B.C. The Chavins were a farming society composed of several different regional groups. Their capital was the city of Chavin de Huantar in central Peru.

NAZCA

Mysterious southern Peruvian culture about which little is known. Thought to have been founded about the time of Christ, but its people had  disappeared before the Spanish conquest. The major artifacts of Nazca culture are a series of enormous figures and designs  drawn with lines of pebbles across the coastal desert of southern Peru, which are best seen from the air. The largest design is of a bird; it is about 900 feet long.