In the centuries before the Incan rose to stature, there was the Tiahuanaco society. Located in western Bolivia, at the shores of Lake Titicaca, this ancient civilization created monuments to the heavens, the earth and the underworld. As the oldest and most advanced people, it developed advances in metallurgy, farming, and art. Tiahuanaco had a class system…. Aymaran were farmers, others were tradesmen, still more were trading goods with other people and all the way up to the elite-the authority figures. The elite class would receive tributes from each of the lower classes, and they would have stored food and goods to trade.
The archeologist told us that due to environmental changes, the farmers could no longer create enough food to feed the 50,000 – 90,000 people who lived in Tiahuanaco. Chaos reigned, and the society began to fall apart. He theorized the traveling trades people could share with the elite that conditions were better several hundred miles to the north (near Cusco Peru), so the elite took their gold ornaments (wealth) and their successful ideas of managing large groups of people (authority) north and became the the leaders of the Incan society. Recent archeological discoveries show the two sites share art symbols, and pottery designs. The carbon dating of the two groups of artifacts show more interesting links.
This is real history, the archeologist said the history channel created a show about all of this, so now the History Channel geek squad is on the hunt. Except the part about aliens.