Powerful Places in the Ancient Andes

In the contemporary Andes, the world is animated by a circulating life force, sometimes called sami, that connects all living things. This force courses through rocks, springs, plants, animals, ancestors—such that the boundary between "living" / "dead", "natural" / "cultural", and "past" / "present" are, at best, fuzzy and malleable. The distribution of sami, however, is not equal. The life force can pool in certain places and drain out of others. The idea of an animate, interconnected world was documented for the Inca, and archaeological research suggests that this belief has deep roots in the Andes. Power among the ancient societies of the region was thus conceived in part through varied ritual strategies of mimesis, alterity, and communion that created, channeled, and redistributed vital forces, a process that effectively merged, or at times separated, social, ontological, and cosmic realms. The desire, in many cases, was to create a place charged with power. This session brings together a group of well-established and up-and-coming scholars to investigate how power-filled places were constructed, maintained, and occasionally destroyed in the Ancient Andes from 3000 BC to the end of the early Spanish colonial era in the 18th century AD.