The Inca Empire was the largest empire in Pre-Columbian America. The Inca Empire arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the 13th century and was spread across the center of the Andean Mountain Range, such as large parts of modern Ecuador, Western and south central Bolivia, Northwest Argentina, North and north central Chile,and Southern Colombia. The Incan Empire as a civilization was very unique in that, the geographical conditions of the Empire caused the people that lived there to be much shorter in height than we are. MEn were an average height of 5 feet 2 inches, while women were an average height of 4 feet, 9 inches. The high altitudes that they lived in caused the Incas to have a lung capacity that was one third larger than any other average human in other civilizations around the world. The Incan civilization itself is beleived to have started many, many thousands of years before it ended. The civilization started around 9500 b.c.e. and ended in 1533. The Spanish conquest of the Incas is what really ended the Incan Empire that had flourished for so many thousands of years.