Climate of the Past www.clim-past.net 1814-9324 1814-9332 5 3 2009 10.5194/cp-5-375-2009 http://www.clim-past.net/5/375/2009/ http://www.clim-past.net/5/375/2009/cp-5-375-2009.html http://www.clim-past.net/5/375/2009/cp-5-375-2009.pdf 375 388 2009-07-22 Putting the rise of the Inca Empire within a climatic and land management context A. J. Chepstow-Lusty 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 Hydrosciences, IRD, Lima, Peru The rapid expansion of the Inca from the Cuzco area of highland Peru (ca. AD 1400–1532) produced the largest empire in the New World. Although this meteoric growth may in part be due to the adoption of innovative societal strategies, supported by a large labour force and a standing army, we argue that it would not have been possible without increased crop productivity, which was linked to more favourable climatic conditions. 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