The (beginning and) end of the world as we know it: The multiple makings and un-makings of the indigenous past in Huarochirí, Peru

Summary

Much scholarly understanding of the ancient Andes has been greatly influenced by the unique ca. 1608 Quechua manuscript of Huarochirí, Peru. For many archaeologists and historians the manuscript reveals an indigenous Andean cosmos otherwise hidden or lost. And indeed the text’s manifest leitmotif is the superation of worlds past by worlds present–an historical etiology of its narrators’ place in space and time. Here I present results from the first systematic archaeology in the central area of the manuscript’s production, which clarify earlier historical reconstructions of Huarochirí’s past and provide deeper insight into the material and narrative construction of these Andean worlds, both in the prehispanic and Spanish colonial eras.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Worlds Forever Changed: The Impact of Conflict and Colony in the "New World"   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage