Over the Andes, and Through their Goods: Integration Period Relations in Northern Ecuador

Summary

While highland Peru’s Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1400) is characterized by community isolation, regional violence and shrinking exchange networks, the contemporary northern Ecuadorian Late Integration Period was a time of large-scale interregional activity that saw the flourishing of market economies. The northern Ecuadorian Andes demonstrated highly diverse cultural practices amongst an intimately connected Barbacoan world that stretched from between the highlands of northern Ecuador and southern Colombia to the Amazon and the Pacific coast. Late Integration Period groups such as the Caras, Yumbos, Quijos, and Pastos were intimately connected via political affiliation and economic exchange – relations that were built and sustained in highly varied environments. This region proved the most difficult to subdue during the late Inka conquest of the region. The Inkas’ imperial attempts to segregate the subjugated highland Caras from surrounding groups via constructing the highest concentration of fortifications in the Pre-Columbian Andes proved insufficient to quell ties with unconquered selva communities, which maintained complex relations throughout Inka and Spanish colonialism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22505