"For Inca Road Builders, Extreme Terrain Was No Obstacle"

"The Inca were master engineers. But like most conquerors, they also tapped local experts. The exhibition highlights a long bridge made of woven plant fibers, still in use today.

"There's an inventory of over 100 bridges in all of the empire — this is one of the few which remain. It's made with icchu or puna grass," Matos says...

Schoolchildren around the world learn about the ancient Roman roads and the Great Wall of China — but most people have heard little about the great Inca Road. Kevin Gover, the director of the National Museum of the American Indian, says the road is largely forgotten because it just doesn't fit into a typical Western narrative.

"Indians play one of two roles in that narrative," he says. "They are either the opponents of civilization or they are literally part of the nature that was there to be settled and conquered. We're not taught that some of these were very advanced civilizations, because that means this wasn't a wilderness. And that means somebody had to be displaced. And it wasn't necessarily a noble endeavor.""

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/08/29/435480149/for-inca-road-builders-extreme-terrain-was-no-obstacle?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150829

I've been encountering pieces of recognition of pre-Columbian American cultures and civilizations and histories and it's incredibly nourishing. It's like big gaps in my worldview are bring filled in.