The Andean region of South America was an unlikely environment for the development of rich and powerful civilizations (see Map 12.4). Much of the region's mountainous zone is at altitudes that seem too high for agriculture and human habitation. Along the Pacific coast an arid climate posed a difficult challenge to the development of agriculture. To the east of the Andes Mountains, the hot and humid tropical environment of the Amazon headwaters also offered formidable obstacles to the organization of complex societies. Yet the Amerindian peoples of the Andean area produced some of the most socially complex and politically advanced societies of the Western Hemisphere. The very harshness of the environment compelled the development of productive and reliable agricultural technologies and attached them to a complex fabric of administrative structures and social relationships that became the central features of Andean civilization.
Cultural Response to Environmental Challenge
From the time of Chavin (see Chapter 3) all of the great Andean civilizations succeeded in connecting the distinctive resources of the coastal region, with its abundant fisheries and irrigated maize fields, to the mountainous interior with its herds of llamas and rich mix of grains and tubers. Both regions faced significant environmental challenges. Droughts and shifting sands that clogged irrigation works periodically overwhelmed the coastal region's fields and the mountainous interior presented enormous environmental challenges, since it averaged between 250 and 300 frosts per year.
The development of compensating technologies required an accurate calendar to time planting and harvests and the domestication of frost-resistant varieties of potatoes and grains. Native peoples learned to practice dispersed farming at different altitudes to reduce risks from frosts,
Andean Civilizations, 200 B. C.E.-1532 c. E.
MAP 12.4
In response to environmental challenges posed by an arid coastal plain and high interior mountain ranges, Andean peoples made complex social and technological adaptations. Irrigation systems, the domestication of the llama, metallurgy, and shared labor obligations helped provide a firm economic foundation for powerful, centralized states. In 1532 the Inca Empire’s vast territory stretched from modern Chile in the south to Colombia in the north.
Interactive Map
And they terraced hillsides to create micro environments within a single area. They also discovered how to use the cold, dry climate to produce freeze-dried vegetable and meat products that prevented famine when crops failed. The domestication of the llama and alpaca also proved crucial, providing meat, wool, and long-distance transportation that linked coastal and mountain economies.
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Ayllu Andean lineage group or kin-based community.
Mit'a Andean labor system based on shared obligations to help kinsmen and work on behalf of the ruler and religious organizations.
It was the clan, or ayllu (aye-YOU), that provided the foundation for Andean achievement. Members of an ayllu held land communally. Ayllu members thought of each other as brothers and sisters and were obligated to aid each other in tasks that required more labor than a single household could provide. These reciprocal obligations provided the model for the organization of labor and the distribution of goods at every level of Andean society. Just as individuals and families were expected to provide labor to kinsmen, members of an ayllu were expected to provide labor and goods to their hereditary chief.
With the development of territorial states ruled by hereditary aristocracies and kings after 1000 B. c.E., these obligations were organized on a larger scale. The mit’a (MEET-ah) was a rotational labor draft that organized members of ayllus to work the fields and care for the llama and alpaca herds owned by religious establishments, the royal court, and the aristocracy. Each ayllu contributed a set number of workers for specific tasks each year. Mit'a laborers built and maintained roads, bridges, temples, palaces, and large irrigation and drainage projects. They produced textiles and goods essential to ritual life, such as beer made from maize and coca (dried leaves chewed as a stimulant and now also the source of cocaine).
Andeans divided work along gender lines, but the work of men and women was interdependent. Hunting, military service, and government were largely reserved for men. Women had numerous responsibilities in textile production, agriculture, and the home. One early Spanish commentator described the responsibilities of Andean women in terms that emphasize the importance of their labor power:
[T]hey did not just perform domestic tasks, but also [labored] in the fields, in the cultivation of their lands, in building houses, and carrying burdens. . . . [A]nd more than once I heard that while women were carrying these burdens, they would feel labor pains, and giving birth, they would go to a place where there was water and wash the baby and themselves. Putting the baby on top of the load they were carrying, they would then continue walking as before they gave birth. In sum, there was nothing their husbands did where their wives did not help.6
The ayllu was intimately tied to a uniquely Andean system of production and exchange. Because the region's mountain ranges created a multitude of small ecological areas with specialized resources, each community sought to control a variety of environments so as to guarantee access to essential goods. Coastal regions produced maize, fish, and cotton. Mountain valleys contributed quinoa (the local grain) as well as potatoes and other tubers. Higher elevations contributed the wool and meat of llamas and alpacas, and the Amazonian region provided coca
Moche Warrior The Moche of ancient Peru were among the most accomplished ceramic artists of the Americas. Moche potters produced representations of gods and spirits, scenes of daily life, and portrait vases of important people. This warrior is armed with a mace, shield, and protective helmet.
And fruits. Ayllus sent out colonists to exploit the resources of these distinct ecological niches, retaining the loyalty of the colonists hy arranging marriages and coming together for rituals. Historians commonly refer to this system of controlled exchange across ecological boundaries as vertical integration, or verticality.
Moche
Around 200 c. E., some four centuries after the collapse of Chavin (see Chapter 3), the Moche (MO-che) developed cultural and political tools that allowed them to dominate the north coastal region of Peru. Although they did not establish a formal empire or create unified political structures, they exercised authority over a broad region. The most powerful of the Moche urban centers, such as Cerro Blanco located near the modern Peruvian city of Trujillo (see Map 12.4), established hegemony over smaller towns and villages and then extended political and economic control over more distant neighbors militarily.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the Moche cultivated maize, quinoa, beans, manioc, and sweet potatoes with the aid of massive irrigation works, a complex network of canals and aqueducts that connected fields with water sources as far away as 75 miles (121 kilometers). Moche rulers forced commoners and subject peoples to build and maintain these hydraulic works. The Moche relied on large herds of alpacas and llamas to transport goods across the region's difficult terrain. Their wool, along with cotton provided by farmers, provided the raw material for the thriving Moche textile production. Their meat provided an important part of the diet.
Moche Social Order
Moche Civilization of north coast of Peru (200-700 c. e.). An important Andean civilization that built extensive irrigation networks as well as impressive urban centers dominated by brick temples.
Evidence from surviving murals and decorated ceramics suggests that Moche society was highly stratified and theocratic. Wealth and power was concentrated, along with political control, in the hands of priests and military leaders. The military conquest of neighboring regions reinforced hierarchy. Because the elite constructed their residences atop large platforms at Moche ceremonial centers, the powerful literally looked down on commoners. Their power was also apparent in their rich clothing and jewelry, which confirmed their divine status and set them farther apart from commoners. Moche rulers and other members of the elite wore tall headdresses and rich garments. The use of gold jewelry also marked high social position.
Moche burial practices reflected these deep social distinctions. A recent excavation in the Lambeyeque Valley discovered the tomb of a warrior-priest buried with a rich treasure of gold, silver, and copper jewelry, textiles, feather ornaments, and shells (see Diversity and Dominance: Burials as Historical Texts). A group of retainers and servants were executed and then buried with this powerful man in order to serve him in the afterlife.
Most commoners, on the other hand, devoted their time to subsistence farming and to the payment of labor dues owed to their ayllu and to the elite. Both men and women were involved in agriculture, care of llama herds, and the household economy. They lived with their families in one-room buildings clustered in the outlying areas of cities and in surrounding agricultural zones.
The high quality of Moche textiles, ceramics, and metallurgy indicates the presence of numerous skilled artisans. Women had a special role in the production of textiles, and even elite women devoted time to weaving. Moche culture developed a brilliant representational art. Craftsmen produced highly individualized portrait vases and decorated other ceramics with
Burials as Historical Texts
Efforts to reveal the history of the Americas before the arrival of Europeans depend on the work of archaeologists. The burials of rulers and other members of elites can be viewed as historical texts that describe how textiles, precious metals, beautifully decorated ceramics, and other commodities were used to reinforce the political and cultural power of ruling lineages. In public, members of the elite were always surrounded by the most desirable goods and rarest products as well as by elaborate rituals and ceremonies. The effect was to create an aura of godlike power. The material elements of political and cultural power were also integrated into the experience of death and burial as members of the elite were sent into the afterlife.
The first photograph is of an excavated Moche tomb in Sipan, Peru. The Moche (200-ca. 700 c. E.) were one of the most important of the pre-Inca civilizations of the Andean region. They were masters of metallurgy, ceramics, and textiles. The excavations at Sipan revealed a “warrior-priest" buried with an amazing array of gold ornaments, jewels, textiles, and ceramics. Also buried with him were five human sacrifices, two women, perhaps wives or concubines, two male servants, and a warrior. Three of these victims—the warrior, one woman, and a male servant—are each missing a foot, perhaps cut off to guarantee their continued faithfulness to the deceased ruler in the afterlife.
The second photograph shows the excavation of a classic-era (250-ca. 800 c. E.) Maya burial at Rio Azul in Guatemala. After death this elite male was laid out on a carved wooden platform and cotton mattress and his body was painted with decorations. Mourners covered his body in rich textiles and surrounded him with valuable goods. These included a necklace of individual stones carved in the shape of heads, perhaps a symbol of his prowess in battle, and high-quality ceramics, some filled with foods consumed by the elite like cacao. The careful preparation of the burial chamber had required the work of numerous artisans and laborers, as was the case in the burial of the Moche warrior-priest. In death, as in life, these early American civilizations acknowledged the high status, political power, and religious authority of their elites.
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
1. If these burials are texts, what are stories?
2. Are there any visible differences in the two burials?
3. What questions might historians ask of these burials that cannot be answered?
4. Can modern burials be read as texts in similar ways to these ancient burials?
Representations of myths and rituals. They were also accomplished metal-smiths, producing beautiful gold and silver religious objects and jewelry for elite adornment. Metallurgy served more practical ends as well: Artisans produced a range of tools made of heavy copper and copper alloy for agricultural and military purposes.
Environmental Crisis and Decline of the Moche
Wari Andean civilization culturally linked to Tiwan-aku, perhaps beginning as a colony of Tiwanaku.
Tiwanaku Name of capital city and empire centered on the region near Lake Titicaca in modern Bolivia (375-1000 C. E.).
The archaeological record makes clear that the rapid decline of major Moche centers coincided with a succession of natural disasters in the sixth century and with the rise of a new military power in the Andean highlands. Long-term climate changes also threatened the Moche region. A thirty-year drought expanded the area of coastal sand dunes during the sixth century, and powerful winds pushed sand onto fragile agricultural lands, overwhelming the irrigation system. As the land dried, periodic heavy rains caused erosion that damaged fields and weakened the economy that had sustained ceremonial and residential centers. Despite massive efforts to keep the irrigation canals open and despite the construction of new urban centers in less vulnerable valleys to the north, Moche civilization never recovered. In the eighth century, the rise of a new military power, the Wari (WAH-ree), also contributed to the disappearance of the Moche by putting pressure on trade routes that linked the coastal region with the highlands.
Tiwanaku and Wari
After 500 c. E. two powerful civilizations developed in the Andean highlands. The ruins of Tiwanaku (tee-wah-NA-coo) (see Map 12.4) still stand at nearly 13,000 feet (3,962 meters) near Lake Titicaca in modern Bolivia. Tiwanaku's expansion after 200 c. E. depended on the adoption of technologies that increased agricultural productivity. Modern excavations provide the out-
Burials Reveal Ancient Civilizations (Left) Buried around 300 c. e., this Moche warrior-priest was buried amid rich tribute at Sipan in Peru. Also buried were the bodies of retainers or kinsmen probably sacrificed to accompany this powerful man. The body lies with the head on the right and the feet on the left. (Right) Similarly, the burial of a member of the Maya elite at Rio Azul in northern Guatemala indicates the care taken to surround the powerful with fine ceramics, jewelry, and other valuable goods.
Line of vast drainage projects that reclaimed nearly 200,000 acres (80,000 hectares) of rich lakeside marshes for agriculture. This system of raised fields and ditches permitted intensive cultivation similar to that achieved by the use of chinampas in Mesoamerica. Fish from the nearby lake and llamas added protein to a diet largely dependent on potatoes and grains. Llamas were also crucial for the maintenance of long-distance trade relationships that brought in corn, coca, tropical fruits, and medicinal plants.
Tiwanaku was distinguished by the scale of its construction and by the high quality of its stone masonry. Thousands of laborers were mobilized to cut and move the large stones used to construct a large terraced pyramid, walled enclosures, and a reservoir. Despite a limited metallurgy that produced only tools of copper alloy, Tiwanaku's artisans built large structures of finely cut stone that required little mortar to fit the blocks. They also produced gigantic human statuary. The largest example, a stern figure with a military bearing, was cut from a single block of stone that measures 24 feet (7 meters) high.
Tiwanaku Social Structure
It is clear that Tiwanaku was a highly stratified society ruled by a hereditary elite. This elite controlled a large, disciplined labor force in the surrounding region. Military conquests and the establishment of colonial populations provided dependable supplies of products from ecologically distinct zones. Tiwanaku cultural influence extended eastward to the jungles and southward to the coastal regions and oases of the Atacama Desert in Chile. But archaeological evidence suggests that Tiwanaku, in comparison with contemporary Teotihuacan in central Mexico, had a relatively small full-time population of around 30,000. It was not a metropolis like the largest Mesoamerican cities; it was a ceremonial and political center for a large regional population.
The contemporary site of Wari was located about 450 miles (751 kilometers) to the northwest of Tiwanaku, near the modern Peruvian city of Ayacucho. Wari clearly shared elements of the culture and technology of Tiwanaku, but the exact nature of this relationship remains unclear. Some scholars argue that Wari began as a dependency of Tiwanaku, while others suggest that they were joint capitals of a single empire. Wari was larger than Tiwanaku, measuring nearly 4 square miles (10 square kilometers). A massive wall surrounded the city center, which was dominated by a large temple and multifamily housing for elites and artisans. Housing for commoners was located in a sprawling suburban zone. The small scale of its monumental architecture relative to Tiwanaku and the near absence of cut stone masonry in public and private buildings suggest either the weakness of the elite or the absence of specialized construction crafts compared with other Andean centers. A distinctive Wari ceramic style allows experts to trace Wari's influence to the coastal area and to the northern highlands. This expansion occurred at a time of increasing warfare throughout the Andes that led to the eclipse of both Tiwanaku and Wari by about 1000 c. E. The Inca inherited their political legacies.
Wari
Inca Largest and most powerful Andean empire. Controlled the Pacific coast of South America from Ecuador to Chile from its capital of Cuzco.
The Foundations of Inca Rule
The Inca
In little more than a hundred years, the Inca developed a vast imperial state, which they called “Land of Four Corners.” By 1525 the empire had a population of more than 6 million and stretched from the Maule River in Chile to northern Ecuador and from the Pacific coast across the Andes to the upper Amazon and, in the south, into Argentina (see Map 12.4). In the early fifteenth century the Inca were one of many competing military powers in the southern highlands, an area of limited political significance after the collapse of Wari. Centered in the valley of Cuzco, the Inca were initially organized as a chiefdom based on reciprocal gift giving and the redistribution of food and textiles. Strong and resourceful leaders consolidated political authority in the 1430s and undertook an ambitious campaign of military expansion.
The Inca state, like earlier highland powers, utilized traditional Andean social customs and economic practices. Tiwanaku had relied in part on the use of colonists to provide supplies of resources from distant, ecologically distinct zones. The Inca built on this legacy by conquering additional distant territories and increasing the scale of forced exchanges. Crucial to this process was the development of a large military. Unlike the peoples of Mesoamerica, who distributed specialized goods through markets and tribute relationships, Andean peoples used state power to broaden and expand the vertical exchange system that had permitted ayllus to exploit a range of ecological niches. The Inca were pastoralists as earlier highland civilizations had been. Inca prosperity and military strength depended on vast herds of llamas and alpacas, which provided food and clothing as well as transport for goods, but they gained access to corn, cotton, and other goods from the coastal region via forced exchanges.
Collective efforts by mit'a laborers made the Inca Empire possible. Cuzco, the imperial capital, and the provincial cities, the royal court, the imperial armies, and the state's religious cults all rested on this foundation. The mit'a system also created the material surplus that provided the bare necessities for the old, weak, and ill of Inca society. Each ayllu contributed approximately one-seventh of its adult male population to meet these collective obligations. These draft laborers served as soldiers, construction workers, craftsmen, and runners to carry messages along post roads. They also drained swamps, terraced mountainsides, filled in valley floors, built and maintained irrigation works, and built storage facilities and roads. Inca laborers constructed 13,000 miles (20,930 kilometers) of road, facilitating military troop movements, administration, and trade (see Environment and Technology: Inca Roads).
The hereditary chiefs of ayllus, a group that included women, carried out local administrative and judicial functions. As the Inca expanded, they generally left local rulers in place. By doing so they risked rebellion, but they controlled these risks by means of a thinly veiled system of hostage taking and the use of military garrisons. The rulers of defeated regions were required to send their heirs to live at the Inca royal court in Cuzco. Inca leaders even required that defeated peoples send representations of important local gods to Cuzco to be included in the imperial pantheon. These measures promoted imperial integration while at the same time providing hostages to ensure the good behavior of subject peoples.
Inca Roads
Inca Road
Cuzco, the
From the time of Chavin (900-250 B. c.E.), Andean peoples have built roads to facilitate trade across ecological boundaries and to project political power over conquered peoples. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Inca extended and improved the networks of roads constructed in earlier eras. Roads were crucially important to Inca efforts to collect and redistribute tribute paid in food, textiles, and chicha (corn liquor).
Two roads connected Cuzco, the Inca capital in southern Peru, to Quito, Ecuador, in the north and to Chile farther south. One ran along the flat and arid coastal plain, the other through the mountainous interior. Shorter east-west roads connected important coastal and interior cities.
The Inca placed regional administrative centers along these routes to expedite rapid communication with the capital. They built rest stops at convenient distances to provide shelter and food to traveling officials and runners who carried messages between Cuzco and the empire's cities and towns. Food and military supplies were also collected at large warehouses along the roads to provide food and military supplies for passing Inca armies or to supply local laborers who worked on construction projects or cultivated the ruler's fields.
Because communication with regional administrative centers and the movement of troops were the central objectives of the Inca leadership, they selected routes to avoid natural obstacles and to reduce travel time. Mit'a laborers recruited from nearby towns and villages built and maintained the roads, taking care to repair damage caused by rain runoff or other drainage problems. Roads were commonly paved with stone or packed earth and often were bordered by stone or adobe walls to keep soldiers or pack trains of llamas from straying into farmers' fields. Whenever possible, roadbeds
The Inca built roads to connect distant parts of the empire to Inca capital. These roads are still used in Peru.
Were made level, but in mountainous terrain some roads were little more than improved paths. In flat country three or four people could walk abreast.
The achievement of Inca road builders is clearest in the mountainous terrain of the interior, where they built suspension bridges across high gorges and cut roadbeds into the face of cliffs. A Spanish priest living in Peru in the seventeenth century commented that the Inca roads “were magnificent constructions, which could be compared favorably with the most superb roads of the Romans."
Source: Quotation from Father Bernabe Cobo, History of the Inca Empire. An account of the Indians' customs and origin together with a treatise on Inca legends, history, and social institutions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), 223.
Conquests magnified the authority of the Inca ruler and led to the creation of an imperial bureaucracy drawn from among his kinsmen. The royal family claimed descent from the Sun, the primary Inca god. Members of the royal family lived in palaces maintained by armies of servants. The lives of the ruler and members of the royal family were dominated by political and religious rituals that helped legitimize their authority. Among the many obligations associated with kingship was the requirement to extend imperial boundaries by warfare. Thus each new ruler began his reign with conquest.
Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, had a population of about 150,000 in 1520. At the height of Inca power in 1530, Cuzco had a population of less than 30,000. Nevertheless, Cuzco was a remarkable place. The Inca were highly skilled stone craftsmen and constructed their most impressive buildings of carefully cut stones fitted together without mortar. Planners laid the city out in the shape of a giant puma (a mountain lion). At the city center were the palaces of rulers as
Inca Tunic Andean weavers produced beautiful textiles from cotton and from the wool of llamas and alpacas. The Inca inherited this rich craft tradition and produced some of the world’s most remarkable textiles. The quality and design of each garment indicated the weaver’s rank and power in this society. This tunic was an outer garment for a powerful male.
Well as the major temples. The richest was the Temple of the Sun, its interior lined with sheets of gold and its patio decorated with golden representations of llamas and corn. The ruler made every effort to awe and intimidate visitors and residents alike with a nearly continuous series of rituals, feasts, and sacrifices. Sacrifices of textiles, animals, and other goods sent as tribute dominated the city's calendar. The destruction of these valuable commodities, and a small number of human sacrifices, helped give the impression of splendor and sumptuous abundance that appeared to demonstrate the ruler's claimed descent from the Sun.
Khipus System of knotted colored cords used by preliterate Andean peoples to transmit information.
SECTION REVIEW
Inca cultural achievement rested on the strong foundation of earlier Andean civilizations. We know that astronomical observation was a central concern of the priestly class, as in Mesoamerica. The collective achievements of Andean peoples were accomplished with a limited recordkeeping system adapted from earlier Andean civilizations. Administrators used knotted colored cords, called khipus (KEY-pooz), for public administration, population counts, and tribute obligations. Inca weaving and metallurgy, also based on
• Andean societies developed by devising solutions to their complex environment of arid coastlands, cold highlands, and tropical forests.
• The ayllu and mit'a provided the social base for Andean social and political organization.
• The Moche developed a powerful state based on irrigated agriculture, exchange between ecological regions, and a powerful religious elite.
• Tiwanaku and Wari used their powerful militaries to extend their power over large regions and create long-distance networks of trade.
• The Inca developed from a chiefdom to a formal empire based on military conquest and the forced transfer of food and other products from defeated peoples through tribute.
• The Inca used roads, irrigation networks, terracing, and other technologies to provide material in a region with a difficult climate and topography.
• Civil war weakened the Inca on the eve of European arrival.
Earlier regional development, was more advanced than in Mesoamerica. Inca craftsmen produced utilitarian tools and weapons of copper and bronze as well as decorative objects of gold and silver. Inca women produced textiles of extraordinary beauty from cotton and the wool of llamas and alpacas.
Although the Inca did not introduce new technologies, they increased economic output and added to the region's prosperity. The conquest of large populations in environmentally distinct regions allowed the Inca to multiply the yields produced by the traditional exchanges between distinct ecological niches. This expansion of imperial economic and political power was purchased at the cost of reduced equality and diminished local autonomy. Members of the imperial elite, living in richly decorated palaces in Cuzco and other
Ie PRIMARY SOURCE: Chronicles Learn how the Incas used mysterious knotted ropes called khipus as recordkeeping devices to help them govern a vast empire.
Urban centers, were increasingly distant from the masses of Inca society. Even members of the provincial nobility were held at arm's length from the royal court, while commoners could be executed if they dared to look directly at the ruler's face.
After only a century of regional dominance, the Inca Empire faced a crisis in 1525. The death of the ruler Huayna Capac at the conclusion of the conquest of Ecuador initiated a bloody struggle for the throne. The rivalry of two sons compelled both the professional military and the hereditary Inca elite to choose sides. Civil war was the result. Regionalism and ethnic diversity had always posed a threat to the empire. Now civil war weakened the imperial state and ignited the resentments of conquered peoples on the eve of the arrival of Europeans.
World History
