Ancient Cuzco
Page 13
The first large-scale systematic archaeological survey project in the Inca heartland was conducted by Brian Bauer between 1984 and 1987 in a 600 km2 region directly south of the Cuzco Valley (Bauer 1992a, 1999, 2002).2 The results of this work indicated a greater time depth to a regionally dominant Cuzco polity than suggested by some historical accounts (e.g., Rowe 1944; cf. Means 1931). Bauer expanded upon this work in 1994 in a second regional project, examining the long-term developmental processes within the Cuzco Valley proper. As noted in Chapter 1, the study of this 350 km2 region was completed by Bauer and Alan Covey in 1997–2000.3 A third survey, covering over 300 km2 in the Vilcanota Valley to the north of Cuzco, was directed by Covey in 2000 (Covey 2003).4 Combined, these three contiguous survey projects encompass a total area of over 1,200 km2 and document the locations of more than 2,000 archaeological sites (Map 8.1).5 Equally important, the three survey projects form an 80-kilometer north-south transect directly through the Inca heartland. As such, the surveys cover the center of the Inca polity in the Cuzco Valley, as well as the lands of several ethnic groups living to the north and south of its capital.
These three survey projects provide an unprecedented opportunity to examine the developmental processes of the Inca state. The survey data can be combined with the results of excavations and reconnaissance work conducted to the east and west of Cuzco to assess the changing political interactions between the emerging Inca state and its neighbors of other ethnic identities. We find that during the period of state development, as well as for the better-understood period of imperial expansion, the Inca employed a wide range of strategies to extend their influence and consolidate their control.
MAP 8.1. Regional settlement surveys in the Cuzco region. Three systematic regional surveys have been completed in the Inca heartland to understand the processes of state development. Research was conducted in the areas north and south of Cuzco, as well as within the Cuzco Valley itself.
MAP 8.2. Overview of the Inca heartland
Of special interest to this study are those groups identified as Inca of Privilege, to whom Inca ethnic status was extended at the onset of the imperial period (Map 8.2). Inca imperial expansion was predicated on the administrative and ethnic unification of what became the imperial heartland by means of a dramatic increase in “Inca” population in which different ethnicities participated unequally.
Through a series of case studies, we can now observe that these strategies targeted different local levels of social complexity and exploited patterns of elite interaction within the emergent heartland. Before we turn to the case studies, however, it is important to review the Killke ceramic styles of the Cuzco region, since it is through these ceramic remains that most of the Killke sites have been identified.
Ceramic Styles of the Killke Period
The most common local ceramic style produced and used by the inhabitants of the Cuzco Basin between AD 1000 and 1400 has been named Killke (Rowe 1944). Decorations on Killke vessels are generally geometric in form and composition (Photo 8.1). Among the wide variety of design motifs used in Killke pottery, the most frequent are broad red (or occasionally black) bands outlined by one to three narrow black lines. Other motifs include sets of nested triangles, often alternating in color from red to black; linked ovals with central dots, linked rectangles with solid interior ovals; large areas covered with black crosshatching; crosshatched diamonds; and pendant rows of solid or crosshatched triangles (Rowe 1944; Dwyer 1971a; Bauer and Stanish 1990; Bauer 1999, 2002).6
Killke pottery, as the immediate antecedent to Inca pottery, holds a unique position in the history of the Cuzco region. Changes in the production and distribution of this ceramic style through time provide archaeologists with a means to examine the development of the Inca state in the Cuzco region. Accordingly, it is worth reviewing past research on this important ceramic style.
Among the earliest known excavations conducted in the Department of Cuzco were those of Max Uhle at the site of Q’atan, near modern Urubamba. Uhle’s fieldwork at Q’atan and additional collections from other parts of the Cuzco region encountered a style of pottery quite different from those generally associated with the Inca. Since little was known of the pre-Inca cultures of the Department of Cuzco, Uhle (1912) could only suggest that this new pottery style dated to a pre-Inca but post-Tiwanaku period, and he proposed a broad AD 800 to 1400 time frame. Soon afterward, Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño and Carlos Larrea M. (1918) reproduced Uhle’s findings in their work “Un cementerio incaico en Quito . . .” Later, in Los orígenes del Cuzco, Jijón y Caamaño (1934) again reproduced some of Uhle’s material and presented additional examples of similar ceramics that he found in the Cuzco region and in museum collections. Like Uhle, Jijón y Caamaño suggested a broad pre-Inca, post-Tiwanaku time period for the production of this new ceramic style. These isolated finds by Uhle and Jijón y Caamaño would later be classified as Killke-related ceramics and dated to the immediate pre-Inca period of the Cuzco region (Rowe 1944: 61–62).
In 1941, John Rowe began to conduct archaeological reconnaissance in the Cuzco Basin, and he undertook a series of test excavations. One goal of this research was to identify and describe the pre-Inca ceramic sequence for the valley (Rowe 1944: 61). Test excavations conducted by Rowe in a courtyard of the Santo Domingo monastery, adjacent to the Inca “Temple of the Sun” (Coricancha), revealed an undisturbed deposit containing ceramic materials similar to those previously found by Uhle and Jijón y Caamaño (Rowe 1944: 61–62). Additional surface collections made by Rowe later that year at a number of archaeological sites found that this pottery style was not only present in the city of Cuzco but also widely distributed throughout the basin.
PHOTO 8.1. Killke pott
Rowe performed test excavations in and around the city of Cuzco during 1942 and 1943 to investigate further this ceramic style, which he had by then named Killke. The recovery of large quantities of Killke pottery at the site of Sacsayhuaman, just north of the city of Cuzco, was especially important in this research. Through the use of the Sacsayhuaman materials, Rowe developed a broad stylistic typology for what he called the Killke Series (Rowe 1944: 60–62). Although he did not find stratified Killke and Inca deposits, he inferred, on the basis of his surface collections, that Killke pottery was the antecedent to Inca pottery in the Cuzco Basin (Rowe 1944: 61).
The identification of the Killke ceramic style in the Cuzco Basin had a profound impact on the study of the Inca. Imperial Inca pottery of the Cuzco region had long been recognized (Bingham 1915; Eaton 1916; Valcarcel 1934, 1935; Pardo 1938, 1939). The discovery of a precursor to this pottery style provided a means to identify sites occupied during the period of state development. Future excavations of sites containing Killke pottery would yield information on the social and economic conditions in which state development took place.
Soon after Rowe’s formal identification of the Killke style, Jorge Muelle led an expedition into the Province of Paruro. Near the hacienda of Ayusbamba, in the District of Pacariqtambo, Muelle identified three sites that contained pottery similar to the Killke materials identified by Rowe in the Cuzco Basin (Muelle 1945). Muelle’s recovery of Killke materials outside the immediate confines of the Cuzco Basin suggested that the Killke-style pottery was distributed widely throughout the entire region. Despite this discovery, and the immediate academic acceptance of Killke pottery as the early Inca pottery style in the region, an extensive study of Killke pottery was not conducted for another twenty years.
From 1966 to 1968, Edward Dwyer conducted test excavations at three sites in the Cuzco region: Minaspata in the Lucre Basin, Pukara Pantillijlla near Pisaq, and Sacsayhuaman. The purpose of Dwyer’s research was to further investigate the Killke Series as earlier defined by Rowe. Of the three sites selected for excavation, Sacsayhuaman again provided the largest sample of Killke pottery, and carbon extracted from a hearth in a Killke context yielded a radiocarbon age of 770 ± 140 BP (calibrated 94.5% probability AD 990–1430).7 Using this
radiocarbon sample, Dwyer (1971a: 140) established the initial production of Killke pottery slightly earlier than Rowe, writing, “Killke culture was probably dominant in the Valley of Cuzco from around AD 1100 until the establishment of the Inca Empire.” Bauer’s (1992a) research in the Paruro region supports this view. A carbon sample from the site of Tejahuaci in Paruro provided a radiocarbon age of 940 ±140 BP (calibrated 94.5% probability AD 750–1300),8 a date similar to that obtained by Dwyer during his excavations of Killke materials at the site of Sacsayhuaman.9
Other Killke-Related Styles in the Cuzco Region
There were numerous centers of ceramic production in the Cuzco region between AD 1000 and 1400. Each of these centers produced its own ceramic style, but because the various ethnic groups of the Cuzco region shared close contacts, there is a great overlap between the styles. Defining distinct ceramic traditions and discovering their distribution centers has presented challenges (and will continue to) for archaeologists working in the Cuzco region. Nevertheless, great strides have been made over the past few decades, and a complex but intelligible picture is beginning to appear.
Besides the Cuzco Basin, two other Killke Period production centers, and their associated styles, have been identified. Recent research indicates that a style named Lucre was being produced in the area of the Pinahua and Mohina ethnic groups east of Cuzco (Barreda Murillo 1973; Gibaja Oviedo 1983; McEwan 1984). To the south, a more distinct style called Colcha was being produced by the Chillque in the village of Araypallpa (Bauer 1992a, 1999, 2002). Reconnaissance work suggests that ceramic production was also occurring in the areas of Chinchero-Maras and the Plain of Anta (Haquehua Huaman and Maqque Azorsa 1996). Furthermore, it seems certain that an additional center was located in the Rachi area, some 130 kilometers southeast of Cuzco in the upper Vilcanota Valley, an area that is the largest pottery production center in the Department of Cuzco today. As archaeological research intensifies, many additional production centers will be identified.
Since the Killke Period ceramic styles from these various centers share many attributes with the better-documented Killke style of the Cuzco Basin, including geometric design elements and some vessel forms, they are frequently referred to as Killke-related styles. It should also be noted that since the various ethnic groups of the Cuzco region shared close contacts, the Killke-related styles not only share stylistic similarity but many of them also have overlapping distribution patterns. It is largely by studying the regional distribution patterns of sites that contain these ceramic styles, and by conducting programs of excavation at specific Killke Period sites, that we can begin to understand processes of Inca state formation (Covey 2003).
State Formation in the Cuzco Basin
Regional settlement changed radically after about AD 1000 with the decline of the Wari polity and the abandonment of the site of Pikillacta. A regional political vacuum spurred competition between several groups in the Cuzco region, leading to political developments in the Cuzco Basin proper. Population within the basin appears to have increased significantly at this time. A series of new settlements were established in more remote parts of the southern basin, while most of the well-established valley-bottom settlements grew substantially. During this same period the northern side of the basin was transformed dramatically (Map 8.3).
MAP 8.3. Killke Period sites in the Cuzco Valley. After AD 1000, a new system of large villages and agricultural works was developed on the northern side of the Cuzco Basin. Virtually all valley-bottom sites in the Oropesa Basin (the previously densely populated area between the Cuzco and Lucre Basins) were abandoned, creating an empty buffer zone between Inca-controlled villages in the Cuzco Basin and those under the control of the Pinahua and Mohina in the Lucre Basin.
Because streams in this area are entrenched, the northern part of the Cuzco Basin historically had few agricultural settlements. During the Killke Period, however, several large villages were constructed on the lower slopes of the north side of the basin. The agricultural potential of this area was intensified through the construction of terraces and irrigation canals. The canals emerged from ravines near the new villages, supplying water to new agricultural terraces constructed almost all the way to the Huatanay River. These terraces created thousands of hectares of improved agricultural land and rank among the largest agricultural projects to be undertaken within the Cuzco Basin. They would have supplied the developing Cuzco polity with significant agricultural surpluses while also presenting the emerging Inca elite with a means of rewarding supporters in local communities. Just as the Wari most likely used mit’a labor to build Pikillacta, it is likely that the Inca built these agricultural works with the use of rotational corvée labor. The ability to organize and construct large public works, and by doing so create new resources for the elite, represents an important element of the state formation process. Although Schaedel (1978: 291) associates the process of resource creation with a slightly later period in Inca history, he aptly sums up the challenges involved:
. . . change was predicated upon the widening of the Cuzco area to encompass an administrative sector that could plan and execute public works through the mitayo system of provincially allocated seasonal labor. This was essentially a method of centralizing “dead season” agricultural labor between sowing and harvesting from most of the provinces in Cuzco, then reallocating the manpower to the projects, either in Cuzco itself, or the circum-Cuzco area. The massive corvée work force is alleged to have numbered in the tens of thousands; and these levies were utilized among other objectives in the channeling of the Urubamba River, the building or extension of the longer irrigation systems (particularly in the highlands) and large-scale terracing projects.
Ethnohistoric sources suggest that some of these new agricultural resources (probably lands for the production of maize, a crop requiring constant water supply) were held by important lineage groups of the valley, and others may have been given to groups from outside the main valley that moved onto these lands, either to seek the protection of Cuzco or as a program of forcible resettlement following military defeat. Internal development, resettlement, and colonization were important strategies used by the Inca state not only to increase resources available for regional competition but to reduce redundancy within the developing hierarchy (Flannery 1972). The scale of such processes and their link to dynastic groups indicate political organization beyond the level of prestate societies.
It is difficult to estimate the exact size of the site of Cuzco during the Killke Period. Nevertheless, excavations carried out in the city have revealed that an extensive settlement had developed by this time. Killke pottery was first identified in the very heart of Cuzco, during excavations at the Coricancha (Rowe 1944). A number of excavations conducted in and immediately around the Coricancha by Cuzco archaeologists (Luis Barreda Murillo, Arminda Gibaja Oviedo, Alfredo Valencia Zegarra, and, most recently, Raymundo Béjar Navarro) have yielded exceptionally high-quality Killke ceramics. The recovery of similar high-status materials below the Coricancha demonstrates that the special character of the site extends back to preimperial times.
Killke pottery and building foundations have also been found in the area surrounding the Coricancha (González Corrales 1984; Béjar Navarro, personal communication, 1996), as well as in the adjacent Cusicancha compound (San Román Luna 2003). Excavations conducted in the Jesuit church beside the plaza and within the plaza itself have also yielded abundant Killke materials (Valencia Zegarra, personal communication, 1995; Fernández Carrasco, personal communication, 2000). Furthermore, substantial deposits of Killke ceramics have been found in each of the major suburbs of the city, including Lucrepata (Bustinza, personal communication, 2000), Coripata (Cumpa Palacios, personal communication, 2000), Colcapata (Valencia Zegarra, personal communication, 2000), and Killke (Rowe 1944). Large, deep deposits of Killke ceramics have also been found at Sacsayhuaman (Rowe 1944; Dwyer 1971a), demonstrating a significant occupation throughout the Killke Period and into Inca impe
rial times (Map 8.4). In other words, current data suggest that the Killke Period occupation of Cuzco was quite extensive, over time approaching that of the city under the mature Inca Empire.
MAP 8.4. Killke ceramics have been recovered in numerous locations in and around Cuzco. (Map from Covey 2003:261)
The Killke Period polity in the Cuzco Basin invested in infrastructure that would create new resources that could be centrally controlled by the Inca elite and used both to attract populations to Cuzco and to compete with groups outside Inca control. Resettled populations enjoyed the use of these resources only through dependent relationships with the Inca elite. They received some benefits from living near productive lands in the well-protected Cuzco Basin, but they would have been obligated to the rulers of the developing state. Internal political consolidation and resource development created settlement buffer zones in the area surrounding much of the main valley as some small groups were brought more closely into Cuzco’s orbit. Not all groups were resettled in the Cuzco Valley, however. Several small groups located south of Cuzco came under Inca control early in the Killke Period without experiencing much of the reorganization seen within the main valley.