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Sure, but the Mayans vaguely knew about them.

The Mayan collapse occurred 700 years before the Inca Empire was founded (and the Aztec Empire, for what it's worth).

Did the Inca genetically engineer llamas? Clearly they were around before the Inca, just like they are still around, even after the Inca.

It's a domestic species, just like, say, modern cattle are domesticated aurochs. The wild equivalents are the guanacoes. They may be physically very similar, but they're different behaviourally.

It's a domesticated species, but it was domesticated well before the Inca civilisation.

There was civilization in the Andes for thousands of years before the Inka. We just know little about them. Likewise in the Maya homelands.

People who live in Peru and study the ruins distinguish three megalithic stonework traditions, with the Inka the least sophisticated. The Inka's predecessors routinely handled rocks of tens, and up to hundreds of tons, slicing them into non-convex polygonal shapes and fitting them like puzzle pieces. The Inka worked only much smaller rocks.

Originally, the king was the Inka. No name for the civilization he ruled has surfaced.

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