Inka and Local Elite Interaction as Reflected at the Inka Site of Incahuasi, Cañete, South Central Coast of Peru

Summary

Incahuasi, located at the mid-valley of the Cañete river, is the largest Inca administrative center reported from Peru's Central Coast. Although first built as a military base by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui in his war against the Guarcos, the site was completely transformed into an administrative center with an extense and prominent storage facility. Recent research at the site has focused in Sector B, described as an elite residential complex. Excavations have found a significant number of finished khipus and elements for their manufacture, which would suggest that khipus where knotted within these compounds. Although khipus are assumed as clear evidence of Inka state exerting accounting and administrative activities at Incahuasi, neither the cultural material nor the architecture at the site are of Inka style, suggesting that a local elite was mainly in charge of the administration and operation of the site. This new evidence from the Cañete Valley adds a new perspective on our thinking about state/local relations in the Inka empire.

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): 20081