Duviols, Pierre, ed. “Un inédit de Cristóbal de Albornoz: La instrucción para descubrir todas las guacas
del Pirú y sus camayos y haziendas.” Journal de la Société des Américanistes (Paris) 56, no. 1: 7–39,
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Millones, Luis. “Albornoz, Cristóbal de (ca. 1529–ca. 1610).” In Guide to Documentary Sources for
Andean Studies, 1530–1900, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, vol. 2, 21–25. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2008.
■GARY URTONANDES, CENTRAL
The Incas arose and expanded in the highlands of western South America, which
have been known as the Andes only since the late Colonial period. Previously,
Andes—a Spanish deformation of the Quechua word Anti—referred to the
eastern forests in the direction of the rising sun. A shift in meaning gradually
took hold as the name Andes became attached to the mountains in general and
then to the entire highland arc from Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego. That 7,000-
kilometer-long (4,350-mile-long) complex of mountain chains, plateaus, and
valleys was raised by mountain-building collisions as the lighter Nazca tectonic
plate off the western shore of the continent slid under the heavier South
American plate. From the Paleozoic to the Pleistocene, folding and faulting of
sedimentary rocks, igneous intrusions, volcanic outpourings, glaciation, and
erosion by water molded the diverse character of these mountains and their
borderlands.