Note 12 — Chapter XVI · WHO WERE AMERICA'S FIRST ARCHITECTS?

The argument of localisation is not upset by the existence of ruins in Peru. Native traditions claim no great age for the things there, which are acknowledged to be of a very crude type. Garcillaso de Vega (Comentarios reales de los Incas) says that, according to Indian tradition, the first Inca King, Manco Capac, established his empire only four centuries before the Conquest. The Peruvian ruins probably date from the later years of the fifteenth century.