Ancient People of the Andes - Michael A Malpass

316 Pages·2021·48.61 MB·English

ANCIENT
PEOPLE

ANDES
OF
THE

ANCIENT
PEOPLE
ANDES

MICHAEL A. MALPASS

OF
THE

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2016 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in
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Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2016 by Cornell University Press

First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2016
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Malpass, Michael Andrew, author.
Title: Ancient people of the Andes / Michael A. Malpass.
Description: Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 2016. | ©2016 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015037596 | ISBN 9781501703218 (cloth : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9781501700002 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Indigenous peoples—Andes Region. | Indians of South
America—Andes Region.
Classification: LCC GN564.A53 M35 2016 | DDC 980/.01—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015037596

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Paperback printing
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Cover photograph: Panoramic view of the central area of the Sacred City
of Caral. Image courtesy of Zona Arqueológica Caral and Christopher
Kleigehe.

This book is dedicated to
Soren Kessemeier Malpass,
without whose unflagging support,
assistance, and encouragement it
would never have been completed

vii

Preface
ix
Acknowledgments
xiii

1
Learning about the Past
1

2 Geography of the Central and South Andes
13

3 The Time Before Temples: The Early and Middle Preceramic Periods
27

4 Settling Down and Settling In: The Late Preceramic Period
50

5 Societal Growth and Differentiation: The Initial Period
67

6 Of Masks and Monoliths: The Early Horizon
96

7 Art and Power: The Early Intermediate Period
116

8 Clash of the Titans? Tiwanaku, Wari, and the Middle Horizon
142

9 Auca Runa, the Epoch of Warfare: The Late Intermediate Period
193

10
Expansion and Empire: The Inkas and the Late Horizon
220

Notes
257
References Cited
259
Index
279

Color plates at end of e-book

CONTENTS

ix

and expands each year. As such, I have relied on par-
ticular sources of information for a lot of the basic
research for this book. If one or two books served
this purpose for given time periods, I have given
them due credit at the beginning of the references
cited. As usual, any interpretations of this informa-
tion that are at variance with the authors’ views are
my responsibility. Finally, a book such as this can
obviously take a long time to write. As such, any
author has to make a decision about when to stop
adding new information. For me, this was 2011, al-
though if there was some important fact that could
be added or changed with little bearing on the main
point of the chapter, I used more recent information.
Also, if the reviewers thought some important infor-
mation or book that should be included in the bibli-
ography had been overlooked, I also included that.
This book also reflects my personal interests in the
prehistory of western South America and my own
research foci. These include the early occupations
and adaptations of people traditionally viewed as
hunters and gatherers, the origins of cultural com-
plexity and social inequalities, the Middle Horizon
Wari culture, and the Inkas. As such, the informa-
tion on these topics in chapters 3, 4, 5, 8, and 10 is
perhaps more comprehensive than in other books.
A second factor influencing the coverage here,
one not peculiar to this book, is the relative amount

As an instructor of college undergraduates since 1984,
and as a person who spends quite a bit of time giving
volunteer lectures on Andean cultures to local middle
and high school classes, I have tried to be observant
about what students like and do not like. Moreover,
like most conscientious instructors, I work at deter-
mining what excites students about a class in prehis-
tory. There are certain obvious things; for example,
students today are much more visually oriented than
my generation was. They like PowerPoint slides,
websites, and videos more than reading. They are
worried about how expensive books are, especially
ones they might be selling at the end of the semester.
This book differs from others that are on the mar-
ket in several ways that bear on these issues of what
students like. First, a recurrent criticism that I have
noticed on student evaluations is that there is too
much emphasis on pottery and site plans, and not
enough on the people who were responsible for them.
Thus, I have tried to reduce the number of the for-
mer while increasing my discussion of the latter.
Ample resources are given in the bibliography for the
instructor to find more of whatever she or he wants
to include, to flesh out the information in the book.
A book such as this obviously relies on the re-
search of others and, even more so, on the published
information available. The volume of information
available on western South America is impressive

PREFACE