Understanding heterarchy: Landscape and community in the northern Calchaquí Valley, Argentina

Summary

This presentation explores landscapes of heterarchy, investigating the ways that past peoples inhabited a south Andean landscape. In the northern Calchaquí Valley of Argentina, before the Inkas, power relations were predominantly decentralized and spatially extensive. As a consequence, lived experience, the built environment, and the wider landscape both constituted and reproduced a distinctive social order and cultural logic. Using data from regional survey, I argue first for a habitus that emphasized face-to-face interactions and informal alliances on one hand, and movements to foster long-distance exchange relationships on the other. Second, I show that rituals and collective activities (and their settings) assembled far-flung communities, creating shared experiences that helped to foster solidarity. Third, I highlight the ways that social relationships were mediated across distances, using elaborately decorated objects, especially pottery and textiles. Broader theoretical aims include a deeper understanding of the dynamics of heterarchy through new insights into lived experience in this Andean landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Powerful Places in the Ancient Andes

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Spatial Coverage