structural:summarization, structural:scholar_edition
Antecedents

The Inca Empire was preceded by two large-scale empires in the Andes: the Tiwanaku (c. 300 –1100 AD), based around Lake Titicaca, and the Wari or Huari (c. 600 –1100 AD), centered near the city of Ayacucho. The Wari occupied the Cuzco area for about 400 years. Thus, many of the characteristics of the Inca Empire derived from earlier multi-ethnic and expansive Andean cultures. To those earlier civilizations may be owed some of the accomplishments cited for the Inca Empire: "thousands of kilometres/miles of roads and dozens of large administrative centers with elaborate stone construction...terraced mountainsides and filled in valleys", and the production of "vast quantities of goods".