The Inca Transformation of the Lucre Basin

Summary

This is an abstract from the "How Did the Inca Construct Cuzco?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the study of archaic states and empires, much can be gained from analyzing how imperialist regimes transform and modify the landscape and built environment in the pursuit of their political goals. The Inca Empire, which expanded out of the Cusco Valley in the south-central Peruvian Andes ca. 1400 CE, provides an ideal case study to understand this process. However, this type of interrogation has rarely been applied towards understanding how the Inca consolidated their heartland. That is, how did the Inca manipulate the built environment to integrate local ethnic groups closer to the imperial capital itself? I examine this question using material from the Lucre Basin, approximately 30 km southeast of Cusco. Within a century of its integration, the Lucre Basin had been radically transformed through a series of construction projects and landscape modifications. I argue that this was done in ways to not only enforce and expand material dimensions of Inca power (i.e., through productive infrastructure), but also specifically structured the daily lived experience of non-Inca ethnic groups in the basin. In other words, things like buildings, terraces, and canals worked to transform notions of local sovereignty into structured experiences of subjugation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• How Did the Inca Construct Cuzco?   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24300