Peru as loose confederation of cities scattered along the coast of northern Peru and southern Ecuador, the Chimu flourished from about 1140 to 1450. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo. In the highlands, both the Tiahuanaco culture, near Lake Titicaca in both Peru and Bolivia, and the Wari culture, near the present-day city of Ayacucho, developed large urban settlements and wide-ranging state systems between 500 and 1000 AD. In the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in
Pre-Arawakan languages of the Greater Antilles as Taíno was, but to languages of Central America which had more similar syllable structures. Western Cuba is close enough to the Yucatán Peninsula for there to have been crossings by canoe at the time of the Conquest. From Ciguayo we also have a proper name "Quisqueya" "(Kiskeya)", and from Macorix a negative form, "baeza." The Guanahani Taino (Ciboney in the proper sense) word for gold, "nozay", elsewhere spelled "nuçay" (nosai, nusai), may be of Warao origin, as the Warao word for gold is "naséi simo" 'yellow pebble'. However, trade words like 'gold' are readily borrowed. Pre-Arawakan languages of the