Rethinking the Inka: the View from the South

Historically, the majority of archaeological research on Inka provincial rule has been done in the Collasuyu, the quarter of the empire that falls within what is today far southern Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. More recently (since 2010, based on Thomson-Reuters Web of Knowledge), there are twice the number of articles on Collasuyu than on the rest of the empire combined. Yet within the English-language literature on the Inka, this vast body of research (published primarily by Latin American archaeologists in Spanish) is infrequently acknowledged or cited. The findings of recent and long-term projects on the Inka in Collasuyu require us to rethink Inka provincial expansion and administration and the dynamics of Inka-local relations. Papers in this session highlight research on landscape and memory, political economy, ideology and materiality, and identity and authority, and as such contribute not only to Andean studies but to a general understanding of ancient empires.