Legacies of War: Fortified Landscapes and Political Transformation during the Late Prehispanic in the Colca Valley (Arequipa, Peru)

Summary

During the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450), frequent warfare radically transformed the landscape of the Colca Valley in the southern Peruvian highlands. Widespread fortification not only marked a new defensive landscape, but also reflected and reinforced broader social and political transformations—including increasing settlement nucleation and the coalescence of new ethnic identities. Although many of the valley's fortifications were largely abandoned following the region's incorporation into the Inka state, this fortified landscape continued to shape social and political processes. The two largest fortified settlements not only continued to be inhabited, but grew and were transformed into local Inka administrative centers. This paper examines how the fortified landscape of the Colca Valley shaped long-term social and political processes drawing both on analysis of the importance of fortifications in the changing settlement patterns in the valley, and the local transformations of the large fortified settlements of Auquimarka and Malata. In doing so, this paper expands upon the notion of fortifications as "landscape patrimony" (sensu Arkush 2011), by exploring how defensive landscapes not only shape and entrench social and political relationships, but also how such built landscapes of war are themselves reimagined and reinterpreted in the face of social and political change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20404