From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Chincha Valley, located 200 km south of Lima, is an ideal environment for studying the development of nonstate groups and the interactions between complex polities. Previous archaeological and historical research reveals a rich history of occupation in Chincha by various societies, including the Paracas culture (ca. 800–200 BC), Chincha Kingdom, and the Inca Empire. Such works demonstrate dense Paracas settlement, paint the Chincha Kingdom as a centralized Late Intermediate Period (LIP, AD 1000–1476) polity, and support a model of an Inca-Chincha alliance, a rare type of political relationship brokered during the Late Horizon (AD 1476–1532). Our intensive, interdisciplinary research over the last six years provides abundant data that substantially enhance our understanding of the Paracas, Chincha, and Inca occupations of the south coast. This session will present these results, highlighting the strategies used to construct nonstate groups and the dynamics between expansionist states and complex polities in this area.