From Roads to Ritual: Comparing Logics and Scale of GIS Analyses of Inka Imperial Landscapes

Summary

During their expansion throughout the Andes, the Inka Empire restructured a cultural and physical landscape to meet objectives of logistical and ideological control over their subjects. While this process is embodied by archaeological features such as large-scale infrastructure and the strategic positioning of sacred places, interpreting these datasets require appropriately scaled analyses for which GIS is uniquely suited. In this paper, I explore this topic by comparing two geospatial analyses, each evaluating a different aspect of Inka imperialism. I first use a Least Cost Path Analysis (LCPA) performed on a segment of the Chinchaysuyu Inka road from Cuzco to Vilcashuaman in central Peru to inform how the Inka used roads as a means of imperial control on a regional scale. The second case study addresses ritual activity on a more localized scale with a Visibility Analysis (VA) from the mixed Inka/local administrative center of Turi in northern Chile. This analysis scrutinizes the location of the surrounding non-Inkan sites’ ritual contexts to discuss where indigenous rituals were continued after the incorporation of the settlement into the Inka Empire and whether or not these ritual activities were performed out of sight of imperial authorities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Erotetics, GIS, and Data Resolution: Spatial Analysis in Archaeological Practice

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15641