Andean Archaeology I: Variations in Sociopolitical Organization

391 Pages·2002·11.5 MB·English

by  William H. Isbell

AAnnddeeaann AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy II
VVaarriiaattiioonnss iinn
SSoocciiooppoolliittiiccaall OOrrggaanniizzaattiioonn
Andean Archaeology I
Variations in
Sociopolitical Organization
Edited by
William H. Isbell
Sial.> U'li""nir.\' of Nfli' York {If Billg/umum'
Hinghamtoll, N,'\\" York
and
Helaine Silverman
Unh'/'rsily of lIIi1loioi aI Urlxilw·C/mmpaigli
UrbtllU/·ClwmfHli~lI, Illinois
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Andean archaeology I: variations in sociopolitical organiz.ationledited by William H,
Isbell and Helaine Silverman.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and inde:\:.
ISBN 978-1-4613-5171-9 ISBN 978-1-4615-0639-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-0639-3
I. Indians of South Ameriea-Peru-Antiquities. 2. Indians of South America- Andes
Region-Antiquities, 3, Peru-Antiquities. 4. Andes Region-Antiquities. I. Isbell.
William Harris, 1943- II. Silverman. Helaine.
F3429 .ASSI7 2002
980'.01- dc21
2002024379
ISBN 978-]-4613-5171-9
C2002 Springer Seience+Business Media New York
Originally published by Kluwer Academicl Plenum Publishers. New York in 2002
Soficover reprint of the hardcover I Sl edition 2002
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
A C.I.P, record for tllis book is available from the Library of Congress
All rigllts rcserved
No pan of this book may be reproduced. stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying. microfilming. recording. or otherwise,
without written permission from the Publisher. with tile exception of any material supplied
speeifieally for tile purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system. for exclusive
use by the purchaser of tile work.
To the memory of ollr distinguished colleage and dear friend, Karen L. Mohr Chavez
Contributors
Richard L. Burger. Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven,
CT 06520
loElien Burkholder • Department of Anthropology, Northern Kentucky
University, Highland Heights, KY 41076
Claude Chapdelaine • Department of Anthropology, Universite de Montreal,
Montreal, PQ H3C 317, Canada
Melissa Chatfield. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa
Barbara, CA 93106
Arminda Gibaja • Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Region Cusco, Peru.
Michael D. Glascock • Research Reactor Center, University of Missouri,
Columbia, MO 65211
Mary Glowacki • Department of Anthropology, Florida State University,
Tallahassee, FL 32306
William H. Isbell. Department of Anthropology, State University of New York,
Binghamton, NY 13902
KrzysztoJ Makowski. Programa de Arqueologia, Departamento de Humanidades,
Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima, Peru
Gordon F. McEwan • Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Wagner
College, Staten Island, NY 10301
Alfredo Melly Cava. Minera Yanacocha, Peru
vii
viii Contributors
Donna J. Nash. Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville,
Florida 32611
Shelia Pozorski • Department of Psychology and Anthropology, University of
Texas-PanAmerican, Edinburg, TX 78539
Thomas Pozorski • Department of Psychology and Anthropology, University of
Texas-PanAmerican, Edinburg, TX 78539
Helaine Silverman • Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Charles Stanish • Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los
Angeles, CA 90095
John R. Topic. Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON
K9J 7B8 Canada
Theresa Lange Topic • Department of Anthropology, University of Western
Ontario, London, ON N6A 5C2 Canada
Patrick Ryan Williams. Department of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural
History, Chicago, IL 60605
Preface
Study of the origin and development of civilization is of unequaled importance
for understanding the cultural processes that create human societies. Is cultural
evolution directional and regular across human societies and history, or is it
opportunistic and capricious? Do apparent regularities come from the way inves
tigators construct and manage knowledge, or are they the result of real constraints
on and variations in the actual processes?
Can such questions even be answered? We believe so, but not easily. By
comparing evolutionary sequences from different world civilizations scholars can
judge degrees of similarity and difference and then attempt explanation. Of
course, we must be careful to assess the influence that societies of the ancient
world had on one another (the issue of pristine versus non-pristine cultural devel
opment: see discussion in Fried 1967; Price 1978). The Central Andes were the
locus of the only societies to achieve pristine civilization in the southern hemi
sphere and only in the Central Andes did non-literate (non-written language) civ
ilization develop. It seems clear that Central Andean civilization was independent
on any graph of archaic culture change.
Scholars have often expressed appreciation of the research opportunities
offered by the Central Andes as a testing ground for the study of cultural evolu
tion (see, e.g., Carneiro 1970; Ford and Willey 1949: 5; Kosok 1965: 1-14;
Lanning 1967: 2-5). We must be careful not to dilute the "Andeaness" of the
ancient societies of the Central Andes by imposing on them the ideal cultural
types provided by cultural evolution, the archaeological record of other world
areas, and features from comparative ethnography. Otherwise, without caution
and rigor, we may construct an Andean past that falsely approximates the pasts of
other, non-Andean civilizations. In so doing, we would fail to understand the
nature and achievements of Andean cultural development. It is this historical
processual and particularizing attention to the Central Andes that enables sub
sequent insights through comparisons with the developmental processes that
occurred in other independent archaic civilizations.
In general, there are five ways to construct knowledge about the prehistoric
past. Archaeologists' inferences almost always employ several of them simulta
neously. Perhaps the most influential is conviction based on theory. Second and
perhaps equally popular is political conviction. Third is the use of recorded his
tory, and the belief that certain historical descriptions also describe societies more
ix
x Preface
distantly removed in time. Fourth is ethnographic information, usually descrip
tions of fairly traditional communities in the same area as the cultures investi
gated archaeologically. This basis of knowledge assumes that distance is similar
to time (see Fabian 1983). The fifth and most robust means of constructing the
prehistoric past is inference based on material remains from archaeological con
texts. This is the only approach that is actually articulated with the past we seek
to know. Of course, inference based on material remains must be combined with
other ways of knowing, so material remains may be used to interrogate knowl
edge anticipated by theory, politics or other convictions. Clearly, however, mate
rial remains provide the only means of verifying expectations about the past,
justifying their elevation to the status of knowledge.
The most popular theory informing many archaeologists investigating the
Central Andean past is processual cultural evolution, or neoevolutionary theory,
although it has diversified into several related schools in recent years. Essentially,
these theories propose a sequence of ideal cultural types as stages through which
societies pass in the process of increasing complexity. Advocates tend to assign
actual prehistoric societies or, more correctly, material assemblages believed to
represent past cultures, to these ideal types on the basis of certain material
remains considered diagnostic. But, sometimes, far too much is assumed about an
archaeological culture based on what is believed to be true about the ideal type.
If knowledge of this sort is used in comparisons intended to produce more gen
eral understandings, our goals are thwarted for what we are really learning about
is the implications of our theory, not regularities and variations in past processes
of culture change.
Another popular paradigm for achieving an archaeological understanding of
the Andean past is climatic or environmental determinism, particularly interesting
for its recursive intersection with the present. If ancient civilizations were disrupted
by climatic changes, then modern politicians must take more seriously the threat of
current and future catastrophes, such as global warming. However, actual evidence
for environmental changes in the prehistoric past is often inconclusive. And such
change is not always well dated (absolute date and duration) or calibrated (inten
sity) in relation to sequences of human events, so it is difficult to achieve a true mea
sure of how great a particular environmental impact would have been on the lived
experience of ancient people. Nonetheless, climate change is one of the most pop
ular mechanisms for explaining prehistoric culture change, especially collapses,
and it appears to be gaining popularity proportional to its closely related political
issues (see critical discussion in Erickson 1999). Seen in a more positive light, some
archaeological projects have been quite successful in showing the great productiv
ity of traditional agriCUltural practices in the context of the harsh and variable
Andean environment (e.g., Erickson 1993; Erickson and Candler 1989). And "lost
crops" of the high Andes (such as quinoa) have become newly fashionable dietary
additions as their significant nutritional value is again appreciated.
Preface xi
"Postmodem" paradigms emphasizing structure, agency and practice are
entering the Andeanist literature. We note especially Isbell's (1997) treatment of
the ayllu and Central Andean social organization, Goldstein's (2000) recent appli
cation of an agency-oriented local perspective to explain the role of exotic goods
in Moquegua Valley society during the Early Intermediate Period, and Silverman
and Proulx's (2002) discussion of power and identity negotiation in the dynamic
world of Nasca 5 chiefs.
Historical information and modem ethnography are important backbones of
Andean prehistory. Together they show us what Andean culture was and is. But
ancient Andean societies were dynamic and multivocalic. It behooves archaeolo
gists to explain their synchronic variation as well as change over time. The mate
rial archaeological record is the most robust and reliable way of knowing the
prehistoric past. We depend on archaeological remains for inferences about pre
historic cultures and societies. For instance, archaeologists examine material evi
dence such as the shape, size and distribution of dwellings, along with the
placement of hearths and other facilities to make inferences about household
organization. Interpretations implied by theoretical or political expectations must
be verified with material remains. Processual cultural evolution tells us that hier
archical administration is associated with regional settlements of different sizes,
in which communities of higher political order possess proportionately larger
populations. But there are many other causes of difference in site size. Convi
ncing inference that centralized political hierarchy was responsible for a prehis
toric site size distribution requires material validation, such as administrative
artifacts found in the higher order centers (see Isbell and Schreiber 1978; Wright
and Johnson 1975). By the same token, if a prehistoric settlement is inferred to
have been a ceremonial pilgrimage center instead of a city, it is necessary to show
what one means by "pilgrimage center," and what kinds of remains characterize
pilgrimage. Then the archaeologist must demonstrate that those materials charac
terize the prehistoric site in question (see Silverman 1993, 1994). Material
remains are not always easy to understand, but they are essential for constructing
convincing knowledge about antiquity. Archaeologists can avoid creating a
homogeneous and essentialist past by focusing more on material remains,
thoughtfully associating material culture with institutional behavior, and interro
gating interpretive arguments with the material remains.
This volume could have been organized around a popular theoretical issue,
or a new interpretative model, but one of our long-term professional goals has
been the promotion of materially-based knowledge about the Andean past. The
papers in this volume reflect an emphasis on material remains as the primary
source of knowledge about the past. We have not sought a complete and balanced
coverage of Andean prehistory, but have emphasized new research and new inter
pretations of data based on recent archaeological and ethnohistorical field work.
Inspiration for the volume came from the 17th Annual Northeast Conference on
xii Preface
Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory, held at the State University of New York
at Binghamton in 1998. Several of the chapters were originally delivered papers
at that conference. We also have included other papers so as to more broadly rep
resent the results of current programs of research in the Central Andes. We hope
that we have achieved our goal of assembling a significant sample of the most
exciting new research results.
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