Terence N. D'Altroy

Provincial Organization of Inka Ceramic Production

The Inka empire was supported by goods and services provided by both generalized and specialized labor. To gain insight into how goods were produced and distributed in the imperial economy, 173 sherds from Cuzco, Lake Titicaca, the upper Mantaro Valley, and Tarma were analyzed (INAA) for materials composition. Results show that production and consumption of Inka ceramics were focused within regions, although two plates probably made in Cuzco were among the Titicaca and Mantaro samples. Inka ceramics from the upper Mantaro were made from at least two sources of raw materials, both distinct from those used in local Wanka ceramics. Evidence suggests that the Inka provincial capital (Hatun Xauxa) and two Wanka towns obtained most of their Inka pots from either one or the other source. These results imply that the state controlled production of its ceramics regionally, starting at the source of the raw materials, and distributed the products of separate sources selectively.

Inka Rule in the Northern Calchaquí Valley, Argentina

Abstract Inka rule in the northern Calchaquí Valley in NW Argentina employed a varied strategy that drew the regions societies into the empire in the 15th century A.C. Surface survey, site mapping, and excavation, combined with review of historical documents, show that the Inkas applied measures designed to ensure security, intensify production of agropastoral and mineral resources, introduce state ideology, administer state activities, and establish cultural relations with compliant subjects. Because the Inkas tailored their approaches to the sociopolitical and natural circumstances of each region, imperial rule resulted in two different kinds of occupations: a discrete set of state installations in the north and a mixed, state-local occupation in the mid-valley.

The Distribution and Contents of Inca State Storehouses in the Xauxa Region of Peru

The activities of the Inca state in the Xauxa region of the Peruvian central highlands were partially supported by the stockpiling of agricultural, gathered, and craft goods in over 2,000 storehouses, distributed among 52 architectural complexes. The spatial organization and architectural standardization of the storage facilities suggest that the accumulation and disbursement of these goods within the province was centrally managed, but that material support for state projects was somewhat dispersed. Documentary sources indicate that the native Huanca population produced the goods stored and played a role in managing the storage system. Test excavations in six storehouses recovered all major prehistoric highland crop taxa–including maize, quinoa, potatoes, and lupine–and fragments of Inca storage vessels.

Transitions in Power: Centralization of Wanka Political Organization under Inka Rule

This paper uses documentary and archaeological data to examine the changes in the political organization of the Wanka ethnic group of the central Peruvian highlands that occurred as a consequence of their incorporation into the Inka Empire. In the last couple of centuries prior to the Inka conquest, Wanka society was comprised of a series of small, increasingly hierarchical polities competing over productive resources. Under the Inkas (I460-1533), selected ethnic elites were appointed to positions of rank within the state bureaucracy. As a result of the Inka policy of centralization of rule in the province, Wanka polities became substantially larger and their paramounts more powerful than before, a transition displayed in the conduct of their early relationships with the Spaniards. The explanation of increasing complexity in political forms is a central problem in the study of cultural evolution. The appearance of hierarchical decisionmaking organizations, centralized control systems, and segmented administrative institutions, for example, is generally treated as key to the emergence of complex society (e.g., Adams I966; Fried 1967; Flannery I97z; Service I975; Wright I977). Characteristically, studies of changes in the means by which power is attained and transferred have as their goal explanation of pristine developments. In comparison, considerably less theoretical attention is paid to the development of secondary political forms (cf. Fried 1975; Price 1978: I6i). This paper examines an instance of the latter phenomenon: rapid transformation of political relations in a series of complex non-state polities, triggered by the imposition of state control. The specific changes to be discussed occurred among the Wanka polities of the central Peruvian highlands following their incorporation into the Inka empire about A.D. I460. The impact of state expansion on the strategies of power relations among conquered peoples is often striking, since the rules for gaining access to power are redefined. Among the consistently rewarding areas of research are the Ethnohistory 34:I (Winter I987). Copyright ? by the American Society for Ethnohistory. ccc ooI4-I8oI/87/

Recent research on the central Andes

I.50. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.191 on Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:09:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Centralization of Wanka Political Organization strategies used to resolve conflicts between competing sources of power; contention between mutually exclusive roads to power, such as nepotism and merit; and allocation of power resources in unstable political climates (e.g., Eisenstadt 1963; Burling 1974; Haas I982). For instance, transitions in the relations between Rome and its client states and provinces (Luttwak 1976), the Aztec Triple Alliance and its tributaries (Gibson 1971; Litvak King 1971; Hassig 1985), and the Inkas and their provincial subjects (Rowe 1946; Murra I975, 1980 [I956]; Schaedel 1978) are repeatedly examined. In the core polities, military, economic, and political strategies and tactics are systemically related, shifting according to the exigencies of changing circumstances in subject territories and at home. Similarly, the reorganization of client and subject populations can be understood at least in part as a response to application of state demands and policies. The mutual adaptations between state and subject polities thus provide an intriguing area of study in the dynamics of early complex society. A central problem in these adaptations is the means by which individuals and groups gain access to power in the provinces. In imperial Rome, for instance, transitions in power relationships between the state core and the subject populaces created different stresses on the state that had to be met by changes in the disposition of power. Luttwak (1976) argues that the Roman empire passed through stages in which reliance on client kings gave way to conversion of allies into subordinates and of buffer states into provinces, as the clients became sufficiently powerful to threaten the core. In this paper, I will examine a comparable transformation in regional sociopolitical organization that resulted from the incorporation of the Wanka ethnic group of the Peruvian central highlands into the Inka state in the late fifteenth century A.D. During the seventy or so years that the Wankas were Inka subjects, the population became substantially more centralized politically, and certain kin groups became entrenched in power. The native polities were integrated into an imposed Inka bureaucracy that relied heavily on ethnic elites for implementation of state policy. As a result, larger Wanka political units were created that successfully aided the Spaniards in their overthrow of the Inka state in the I530s. The discussion will draw on data from archaeological and historical sources. While some early Spanish sources are useful for characterizing preInka Wanka society, the best of these (Toledo 1940 [i570]) recorded native oral history recounted at least one hundred years after the Inka conquest. To establish the necessary pre-Inka baseline (ca. A.D. I350-I460), I will rely in part on field data from the Upper Mantaro Archaeological Research Project, which since 1977 has been conducting investigations into the nature of Wanka society (Earle et al. I980; Earle et al. I987). Discussion of Inka period (ca. 1460-1533) changes in Wanka sociopolitical organization is also based on archaeological data and published historical documents. For this period, the 79 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.191 on Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:09:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Provincial power in the Inka empire

This paper reviews the rapidly changing archaeology conducted in the central Andes over the last 5–7 years. Descriptive work remains at the core of much research. At a theoretical level, foreign archaeologists are more fully using historical concepts particular to the Andes, while Andean archaeologists are drawing selectively from processual and post-processual approaches. Advances in understanding cultural historical developments are reviewed chronologically, with an emphasis on politics, social formation, ideology, settlement patterns, and economics. The article concludes by examining environment and subsistence, technology and society, and gender.