Conflict and the Politics of Solidarity: Hierarchy and its Limits in the Late Precolumbian Andean Highlands

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Premodern groups under significant external threat often developed a politics of solidarity, emphasizing group strength and shared responsibilities rather than vertical distinctions. This paper draws on evidence from the late precolumbian Andean highlands to illustrate how the demands of defense shaped political dynamics and leadership roles. The most defensive settlement patterns in the Andean sequence and the highest rates of adult cranial injury occur ca. 1200–1450 CE in the central and southern highlands, showing that conflict endangered populations and settlements. Leaders likely played important roles in negotiating consensus and coordinating military action (including the building of fortifications and alliances), and may have held key ceremonial responsibilities. Status differences developed between family groups, linked to ancestral claims and protection from attack. Nevertheless, the development of sociopolitical hierarchy was limited in important ways. This Andean case serves as a counterexample to other trajectories of violent conflict and increasing political hierarchy. I suggest that causal mechanisms in some well-known theoretical models (Carneiro 1970; Turchin 2009, etc.) are less applicable than a different set of interlinked factors, not unique to the Andes: resource risk, the limited value of productive labor, constraints on wealth accumulation and display, defensive needs, and a strongly fortified landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Warfare and the Origins of Political Control   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36312.0