Guano dramatically boosted the production of maize, and the surplus helped fuel the Chincha Kingdom’s economy.

In 1532, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and a group of Europeans took the Inca ruler Atahualpa hostage, setting the stage for the fall of the Inca Empire.

Seabird poop could have been used to fertilize Peru's Chincha Valley by at least 1250 CE, potentially facilitating the ...

In A Nutshell Between 1250 and 1400 CE, Peru’s Chincha Kingdom mastered seabird guano fertilization, enabling agriculture in one of Earth’s driest deserts centuries before the Inca Empire arrived ...

A longstanding suspicion that guano (bird droppings) from offshore islands drove the success of coastal communities in what is now Peru, probably sustaining the Inca Empire, has received scientific ...