Land Use, Settlement Patterns, and Collective Defense in the Titicaca Basin: The Constitution of Defensive Community

Summary

This paper starts from the hypothesis that "community" in the Andean highlands in the Late Intermediate Period (LIP) had a great deal to do, not only with kinship and territory, but also with collective defense, including the defense of important common resources. If so, how would the socioeconomic activities of farming and herding have affected the practical organization of defense, and the formation of communities based in part on common defense? I draw on the archaeological record of the Titicaca Basin for a preliminary exploration of this question. The production regimes used by Titicaca Basin peoples changed markedly over time, shifting from intensified agriculture in the Middle Horizon to relatively risk-averse strategies of pastoralism and rain-fed terrace cultivation in the LIP. But notwithstanding many basic cultural similarities among LIP Titicaca Basin societies, there are significant contrasts across this large region in the opportunities the land affords for farming and herding and the relative importance of these activities in late pre-Columbian times. These regional contrasts provide an opportunity to explore how farming, herding, and related settlement patterns influenced the organization of defense and the constitution of LIP communities.

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): 20326