Agriculture and the onset of political inequality before the Inka

Hastorf, Christine Ann

Book

Agriculture and the onset of political inequality before the Inka

Cambridge University Press • Cambridge [England] • Published In 1993 • Pages: xv, 298

By: Hastorf, Christine Ann.

Abstract
Hastorf examines '…the nature of power and political differentiation … over a thousand-year period, from AD 200 until the Inka conquest in the fifteenth century….She also traces changes in agricultural production within the region, which she considers were fundamental to its social and political evolution….[She uses a] comprehensive and sophisticated methodology for studying prehistorical agriculture--based on the analysis of modern and prehistoric plant remains…' (page i). '[She] concludes that neither principle [neither hierarchy and conquest nor regulation and balanced opposition] gained total ascendance in the pre-Inka Sausa sequence…There is evidence of increased Wanka II political hierachy in several realms yet we can also see it lacking in other areas…But the Tunanmarca leaders did not gain control over the whole region. Their power was ephemeral in that they…did not have attached specialist producers, did not control most production, did not gain access to valley lands, and did not consolidate permanent hierarchical leadership….These elites perhaps had greater numbers of high-status products, but they also gave them away. The elite war leaders perhaps controlled decisions over more labor and land, but might lose them if the TINKU battles were lost. Regulatory mechanisms within the populace were strong…' (page 227). Only the material that pertains to the time period of the Andean Regional States (1000 B.P.-540 B.P.) was indexed for OCM (Outline of Cultual Materials) codes.

Theoretical orientation in research and its results

Production and supply

Status, role, and prestige

Community heads

Territorial hierarchy

Andean Regional States