Maintaining an Imperial Borderland: Inka and Indigenous Activities and Interactions in a Threatened Eastern Andean Valley

Summary

In the final decades before the Spanish invasion of the Andes, the Inka Empire struggled to maintain its eastern frontier against the imminent threat posed by the invading lowland Chiriguano peoples. Located within this sparsely populated and loosely connected borderland region was the settlement of Pulquina Arriba, an Inka tampu (waystation) strategically constructed along a preexisting indigenous road network that ran adjacent to a rich river valley. The area’s inhabitants were involved in local agricultural operations, and the tampu seems to have been an important component within the infrastructural network supporting Inka colonial activities across the eastern Andean valleys. This talk will present the results of a regional survey and targeted excavations conducted in the vicinity of the Inka site, specifically addressing (1) the Inka and indigenous settlement styles and patterns determined within the study region (2) the types of activities (economic, military, etc.) in which indigenous groups and the Inkas alike were engaged during their occupations of the area, and (3) the extent to which Inka colonial undertakings affected preexisting indigenous sociopolitical structures and the corresponding implications of these changes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17458