Lima Culture: Bridging Domestic and Political Economy

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Political Economies on the Andean Coast" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Despite having been central during the pioneer years of Andean archaeology, we understand little of the Lima Culture (circa AD 50–900). Is the Lima culture a political formation or several political formations that share a common territory? How was this society organized politically? On what was political power based in Lima society? Researchers have tended to answer these questions through dichotomies: (1) A strong local development or by-products of interaction with foreign societies; (2) It is based on agricultural-economic centralization or a society based on the participation of elites in international networks. As if the entire Lima culture had responded as a unit to a single type of stimulus. We propose to address these questions recognizing the structures of Lima society, but also the practice of the actors who, at different levels, interpret, refute, and transform these structures. Understand the political economy of Lima society as the result of the permanent tension between these actors’ domestic economies. The Lima culture comprised a series of relatively independent groups that shared a system of ideas and beliefs. At the onset of the middle horizon, there is evidence of a process of integration that is both local and external.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Political Economies on the Andean Coast   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35818.0