Lost in Transition: Social and Political Changes in the Central Southern Andes from the Late Prehispanic to the Early Colonial Periods

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Lost in Transition: Social and Political Changes in the Central Southern Andes from the Late Prehispanic to the Early Colonial Periods," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This symposium explores the social transition and the political powers at a local and regional scale in the central-southern Andes during the Late Prehispanic periods (Late Intermediate Period – Late Horizon) and the Early Colonial. This period of time includes two meaningful transitions: the transition of multiple local governments into the Inca Empire and the transition from the Inca Empire to the Spanish Empire. The study and discussion of these transitions involve a methodological problem because it illustrates how inadequate the archaeology is to bring clear information about the transitions between periods, statuses, and different governments. As archaeologists, we focus on studying the material culture to address the cultural changes; however, as these changes succeeded in very short periods of time, such as the transitions between the Late Prehispanic times and the Early Colonial, how can we study archaeologically these transitions? This symposium proposes to challenge both our way to study transitions as well as its impact on the social and political changes in the suggested area.