Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T02:03:46.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Southeastern Inka Frontier against the Chiriguanos: Structure and Dynamics of the Inka Imperial Borderlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Sonia Alconini
Sonia Alconini*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, San Antonio, TX 78249
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent research on the Inka has documented the strategies and effects of imperial administration at a provincial and household level. Less is known, however, about the structure and dynamics of the Inka frontier and its impact on local and economic processes. The southeastern Inka frontier—according to ethnohistoric record—was the setting for conflict between the Inkas and the Guaraní-speaking Chiriguano groups from the Chaco piedmonts and Amazonian lowlands. In the context of two competing frontier models, one military (a hardened perimeter or in-depth defense) and one cultural (with wide socioeconomic processes), this article evaluates the nature of the southeastern Inka frontier and its effects on local socioeconomic dynamics. Archaeological and ethnohistorical research at Oroncota and Cuzcotuyo, two Inka centers of this frontier, suggest an alternative in the form of a “soft military frontier” formed by outposts and imperial centers disembedded from local socioeconomic processes. While architecture reveals high levels of investment, settlement data, storage capability, and the distribution of Inka imperial materials all suggest a minimal involvement in local socioeconomic processes. The results are relevant to understanding Inka frontier strategies and provide a case study of frontier interaction between a highly organized prehistoric state and tribal populations.

Recientes investigaciones han documentado las estrategias y efectos de la administración Inka imperial a niveles provinciales y domésticos. Sin embargo, poco se conoce sobre la estructura y dinámica de la frontera Inka, y su impacto en procesos locales y económicos. La frontera Inka al sudeste fue—según la etnohistoria—escenario de interacción conflictiva entre los Inkas y grupos Chiriguanos Guaraní del piedemonte Chaqueño y sabanas Amazónicas. En el contexto de dos modelos de frontera imperial, el militar (como perímetro endurecido o defensa profunda) y cultural (con amplios procesos socioeconómicos), este artículo evalúa la naturaleza de la frontera Inka al sudeste, y sus efectos en la dinámica socioeconómica local. Investigaciones arqueológicas y etnohistóricas en Oroncota y Cuzcotuyo, dos centros de la frontera, sugieren una variante alternativa en forma de una frontera militar tenue, formada por puestos de observación y centros imperiales casi desarraigados de procesos socioeconómicos locales. Mientras que la arquitectura revela niveles altos de inversión, datos de asentamiento poblacional, capacidad de almacenaje, y distribución de materiales imperiales sugieren un mínimo nivel de ingerencia en procesos socioeconómicos locales. Los resultados son relevantes para entender las estrategias Inka de fronteras, además interacción fronteriza entre un estado prehistórico altamente organizado y poblaciones tribales.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 2004 , pp. 389 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Society for American Archaeology.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Agreda Corrales, Enrique 1994 Suelos y riego. In Estudio integrado de los recursos naturales del Departamento de Chuquisaca. Corporatión de Desarrollo de Chuquisaca. Departamento de Recursos Naturales, Sucre, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Alcaya[ga], Diego Felipe 1961[1605] Relatión cierta que el padre Diego Felipe de Alcaya, cura de Mataca, envió a su excelencia el señor Marqués de Montes Claro, Visorrey de estos Reynos, sacada de la que el capitán Martín Sánchez de Alcayaga, su padre, dejó hecha. In Cronlstas cruceños del alto Peru virreynal. Edición Conmmemorativa del IV Centenario de la Fundación de Santa Cruz de la Sierra, pp. 47–86. Publications de la Universidad Gabriel René Moreno, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Alconini, Sonia 2002 Prehistoric Inka Frontier, Structure and Dynamics in the Bolivian Chaco. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Alconini, Sonia, and Rivera, Claudia 2003 La traditión cerámica “Estampada e incisa de bordes doblados” en la vertiente oriental de los Andes: Interacción e influencia desde las zonas bajas. In La mitad verde del mundo andino. Estado actual de las investigaciones arqueológicas en la vertiente oriental de los Andes y tierras bajas de Bolivia y Argentina, edited by Gabriela Ortiz and Beatriz Ventura, pp. 153–177. Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, Argentina.Google Scholar
Anderson, Malcolm 1996 Frontiers: Territory and State Formation in the Modern World. Polity Press and Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, England.Google Scholar
Athens, J. Stephen 1992 Ethnicity and Adaptation: The Late Period-Cara Occupation in Northern Highland Ecuador. In Resources, Power, and Interregional Interaction, edited by Edward Schort-man and Patricia Urban, pp. 193–219. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Barragán Romano, Rossana 1994 Indios de arco y flecha?: Entre la historia y la arqueología de las poblaciones del norte de Chuquisaca (Siglos XV-XVI). Ediciones ASUR 3. Antropólogos del Surandino (ASUR), Inter-American Foundation, Sucre, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Bray, Tamara Lynn 1991 The Effects of Inca Imperialism on the Northern Frontier. Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton, University Microfilms, Ann Harbor.Google Scholar
Bronson, Bennet 1988 The Role of Barbarians in the Fall of States. In The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, edited by Norman Yoffee and George L. Cowgill, pp. 196–218. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumfield, Elizabeth M., and Fox, John W. (editors) 1994 Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Google Scholar
Champion, Timothy, and Champion, Sara 1986 Peer Polity Interaction in the European Iron Age. In Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-Political Change, edited by Colin Renfrew and John F. Cherry, pp. 59–68. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Cobo, Bernabe 1993 [1582–1657] History ofthe Inca Empire: An Account of the Indians’ Customs and Their Origin together with a Treatise in Inca Legends, History, and Social Institutions (1582–1657), translated and edited by Roland Hamilton. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Combes, Isabelle, and Saignes, Thierry 1991 Alter Ego Naissance de L’Identite Chiriguano. Editiones de L’Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.Google Scholar
Cooter, S. William 1977 Preindustrial Frontiers and Interaction Spheres: Prolegomenon to a Study of Roman Frontier Regions. In The Frontier: Comparative Studies, edited by David H. Miller and Jerome Steffen, pp. 81–108. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Costin, Cathy L., and Earle, Timothy 1989 Status Distinction and Legitimation of Power as Reflected in Changing Patterns of Consumption in Late Prehispanic Peru. American Antiquity 54:691–714.Google Scholar
D’ Altroy, Terence N. 1992 Provincial Power in the Inka Empire. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
D’ Altroy, Terence N. 2002 The Incas. Blackwell Publishers, Maiden, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
D’Altroy, Terence, Lorandi, Ana María, Calderani, Milena, Williams, Verónica, Hastorf, Christine, DeMarrais, Elizabeth, and Hagstrum, Melissa B. 2000 Inka Rule in the Northern Calchaquí Valley, Argentina. Journal of Field Archaeology 27:1–26.Google Scholar
D’Altroy, Terence N., and Earle, Timothy K. 1992 Inka Storage Facilities in the Upper Mantaro Valley, Peru. In Inka Storage Systems, edited by Terry Y. LeVine, pp. 176–205. University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma.Google Scholar
DeBoer, Warren R. 1981 Buffer Zones in the Cultural Ecology of Aboriginal Amazonia: An Ethnohistorical Approach. American Anthropologist 46:364–376.Google Scholar
DeMarrais, Elizabeth 1997 Materialization, Ideology, and Power: The Development of Centralized Authority among the Pre-Hispanic Polities of the Valle Calchaqui, Argentina. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Castillo, Luis Jaime, and Earle, Timothy 1996 Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology 37:15–31.Google Scholar
Dillehay, Tom D., and Gordon, Américo 1988 La actividad prehispanica de los Incas y su influencia en la Araucania. In Fonteras del Estado Inca. 45°. Congreso International de Americanistas, Arqueología de las Americas, edited by Tom Dillehay and Patricia Netherly, pp. 145–155. Fondo de Promoción de la Cultura, Bogotá, Colombia.Google Scholar
Dillehay, Tom D., and Netherly, Patricia 1988 Fronteras del estado incaico. In Fronteras del Estado Inca. 45th Congreso International de Americanistas, Arqueología de las Americas, edited by Tom Dillehay and Patricia Netherly, pp. 79–86. Fondo de Promoción de la Cultura, Bogota, Colombia.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary 1966 Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Eadie, John W. 1977 Civitates and Clients: Roman Frontier Policies in Pannonia and Mauretania Tingitana. In The Frontier: Comparative Studies, edited by David H. Miller and Jerome Steffen, pp. 57–80. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Earle, Timothy 1994 Wealth Finance in the lnca Empire: Evidence from the Calchaqui Valley, Argentina. American Antiquity 59:443–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elton, Hugh 1996 Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis.Google Scholar
Garcilazo de la Vega, Inca 1960 [1609] Comentarios reales de los Incas. Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Vols. 133–135, Ediciónes Atlas, Madrid.Google Scholar
Gasparini, Graziano, and Margolies, Luise 1980 Inca Architecture. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Gifford, Chad, Connell, Sam, and Gonzalez, Ana Lucia 2004 Colonial Bookends: Encountering the Inkas in Argentina and Ecuador. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Montreal.Google Scholar
Gonzáles, Rex, and Núñez Regueiro, V. 1958–1959 Apuntes preliminares sobre la arqueología de campo de Pucará y alrededores (Depto. de Andalgalá, Provincia de Catamarca). In Anales de arqueología y etnología, vol. 14–15,pp. 115–162. UniversidadNacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina.Google Scholar
Gorenstein, Shirley 1985 Acambaro: Frontier Settlement on the Tarascan-Aztec Border. Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology, No. 32, Vanderbilt University, Nashville.Google Scholar
Gyarmati, János, and Varga, András 1999 The Chacaras of War: The Inca Estate in the Cochabamba Valley, Bolivia. Hoka es Fia Kiado es Nyomda Kft, Budapest.Google Scholar
Hastings, Charles Mansfield 1985 The Eastern Frontier: Settlement and Subsistence in the Andean Margins of Central Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, University Microfilms, Ann Harbor.Google Scholar
Hastorf, Christine A. 1993 Agriculture and the Onset of Political Inequality before the Inka. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hemming, John 1970 The Conquest of the Incas. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York.Google Scholar
Hudson, J. 1985 Theory and Method in Comparative Frontier Studies. In The Archaeology of Frontiers and Boundaries, edited by Stanton Green and Stephen Perlman, pp. 11–32. Academic Press, Orlando.Google Scholar
Hyslop, John 1988 Las fronteras estatales extremas del Tawantinsuyu. In La Frontera del Estado Inca, edited by Tom Dillehay and Patricia Netherly, pp. 35–37. BAR International Series 442, British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hyslop, John 1990 Inka Settlement Planning. University of Texas, Austin.Google Scholar
Ibarra Grasso, Dick Edgar, and Lewis, Roy Querejazu 1986 30,000 años de prehistoria en Bolivia. Editorial Los Amigos del Libro, Werner Güttentag, La Paz, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Idrovo Urigüen, Jaime 2000 Tomebamba, arqueología e historia de una ciudad imperial. Banco Central del Ecuador, Dirección Cultural Regional Cuenca, Quito, Ecuador.Google Scholar
Janusek, John W., and Blom, Deborah E. 2005 Civilization on the Andean Fringe: Verticality and Local Cultural Development in the Bolivian Eastern Valley. Latin American Antiquity, in press.Google Scholar
Janusek, John W., Muñoz, Maria A., Blom, Deborah, Alconini, Sonia, Angelo, Dante, and Lima, Pilar 1993–1996 Yampara: Asentamiento prehispanico en la region de Icla, Chuquisaca-Bolivia. Bajo un eonvenio de colaboracion entre la Secretaria Nacional de Cultura-Instituto Nacional de Arqueologia, Bolivia y la Universidad de Chicago.Google Scholar
Julien, Catherine 1995 Oroncota entre dos mundos. In Espacio, etnías, frontera: Atenuaciones políticas en el sur del Tawantinsuyu, Siglos XV-XV1II. Ediciones ASUR 4. Antrópologos del Surandino (ASUR), Inter American Foundation, pp. 97–160. Sucre, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Julien, Catherine 1997 Colonial Perspectives on the Chiriguaná. In Resistencia y Adaptatión Nativas en las Tierras Bajas Latinamericanas, edited by Maria Susana Cipolleti, pp. 18–76. Biblioteca Abya-Yala, Quito.Google Scholar
Kintigh, Keith W., and Ammerman, Albet J. 1982 Heuristic Approaches to Spatial Analysis in Archaeology. American Antiquity 47:31–63.Google Scholar
La Salvia, Fernando, and Brochado, José P. 1989 Cerámica Guarani. Prosenato Arte & Cultura, Porto Alegre, Brazil.Google Scholar
Lathrap, Donald W. 1970 The Upper Amazon. Praeger Publishers, New York.Google Scholar
Lattimore, Owen 1940 Inner Asian Frontiers of China. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Lattimore, Owen 1962 Studies in Frontier History: Collected Papers 1928–1958. Oxford University Press, London.Google Scholar
Lee, Vicent R. 1992 Investigations in Bolivia. Sixpac Manco Edition, Wilson, Wyoming.Google Scholar
Lewis, Kenneth E. 1984 The American Frontier: An Archaeological Study of Settlement Pattern and Process. Academic Press, Orlando.Google Scholar
Lima, Pilar 2000 ¿ Ocupación Yampara en Quila Quila ? Cambios socio-políticos de una sociedad prehispánica durante el Horizonte Tardío. Tesis de Licenciatura, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Lizarraga, Reynaldo de 1968[ 1605] Descriptión breve de toda la tierra del Peru, Tucuman, Río de la Plata y Chile. Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 216, Ediciones Atlas, Madrid.Google Scholar
Lorandi, Ana Maria 1980 La frontera oriental del Tawantinsuyu: El Umasuyu y el Tucumán. Una hipótesis de trabajo. In Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, pp. 147–164, Buenos Aires, Argentina.Google Scholar
Luttwak, Edward 1976 The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century A. D. to the Third. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Meyers, Albert 1998 Las campañas arqueológicas en Samaipata, 1994–1996. Segundo informe de trabajo. Sociedad de Investigación del Arte Rupestre de Bolívia (SIARB), Boletin no 12, pp. 59–86. La Paz, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Meyers, Albert 2005 Hacia una periodización de la Cultura Inka: Perspectivas desde Samaipata, oriente de Bolivia. In Adas del Congreso Nacional de Arqueologia, La Plata, Argentina, in press.Google Scholar
Morris, Craig 1992 The Technology of Highland Inka Food Storage. In Inka Storage Systems, edited by Terry Y. LeVine, pp. 237–258. University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma.Google Scholar
Morris, Craig, and Thompson, Donald E. 1985 Huanuco Pampa: An Inca and Its Hinterland. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Niles, Susan A. 1987 Niched Walls in Inca Design. Journal of Architectural Historians XLVI:277–285.Google Scholar
Nordenskiöld, Erland 1917 The Guaraní Invasion of the Inca Empire in the Sixteenth Century: An Historical Indian Migration. Geographical Review: American Geographical Society of New York 4:103–121.Google Scholar
Nordenskiöld, Erland 1924 Forschungen und Abenteuer in Sudämerika. Strecker und Schroder Verlang, Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Parker, Bradley James 1998 The Mechanics of Empire: The Northern Frontier of Assyria as a Case Study in Imperial Dynamics. Ph. D. Dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Pärssinen, Martti 1992 Tawantinsuyu: The Inca State and Its Political Organization. Societas Historica Finlandiae, Helsinki.Google Scholar
Pärssinen, Martti 1997 Investigaciones arqueológicas con ayuda de fuentes históricas: Experiencias en Cajamarca, Pacasa y Yampara. In Saberes y memorias en los Andes: In Memoriam Thierry Saignes, edited by Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne, pp. 41–58. Institut des Hautes Éludes de I’ Amérique Latine and Institut Français d’Études Andines, París and Lima.Google Scholar
Pärssinen, Martti, and Siiriäinen, Ari 1998 Cuzcotoro and the Inca Fortification System in Chuquisaca, Bolivia. Baessler-Archiv, Neue Folge, Band XLVL pp.135–164. Berlin Google Scholar
Patterson, Thomas 1992 The Inka Empire: the Formation and Disintegration of a pre-Capitalist State. Berg, New York.Google Scholar
Paulotti, O. 1958–1959 Las ruinas de los nevados de Aconquija, noticia preliminar. Runa 9:125–135, Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Paulotti, O. 1967 Las ruinas de los nevados de Aconquija, los dos grupos de construcciones. Runa 10:354–370, Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Paynter, Robert W. 1985 Surplus Flow between Frontiers and Homelands. In The Archaeology of Frontiers and Boundaries, edited by Stanton W. Green and Stephen M. Perlman, pp. 163–212. Academic Press, Orlando.Google Scholar
Planella, María Teresa, Stehberg, Rubén, Table, Blanca, Niemeyer, Hans, and del Río, Carmen 1991 La fortaleza indígena del Cerro Grande de la Compañía (Valle del Cachapoal) y su relatión con el proceso expansivo meridional incaico. In Actas del XII Congreso Nacional de Arqueología Chilena, pp. 403–421, Temuco, Chile.Google Scholar
Plaza Schuller, Fernando 1976 La Incursión Inca en el septentrión andino ecuatoriano: Antecedentes arqueólogicos de la convulsiva situatión de contacto cultural. Instituto Otavaleóo de Antropología, Otavalo, Ecuador.Google Scholar
Raffino, Rodolfo 1988 Poblaciones indigenas en Argentina. Tipográfica Editora Argentina, Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Raffino, Rodolfo 1993 Inka: arqueología, historia y urbanismo del altiplano andino. Corregidor, Argentina.Google Scholar
Rawls, Joseph 1979 An Analysis of Prehispanic Andean Warfare. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Redmond, Elsa M. 1988 In War and Peace: Alternative Paths to Centralized Leadership. In Chiefdoms and Chieftancy in the Americas, edited by Elsa M. Redmond, pp. 68–103. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Riester, Jurgen 1995 Chiriguano. Pueblos indígenas de las tierras bajas de Bolivia No. 3. Apoyo para campesino indigeno del oriente boliviano, Santa Cruz de la Sierra.Google Scholar
Rostworowski, Maria 1988 Historia del Tawantinsuyu. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima.Google Scholar
Rowe, John H. 1946 Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish conquest. In Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. 2, edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 183–330, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Rowe, John H. 1985 [1569] Probanza de los Incas nietos de conquistadores. Histórica 9:193–245.Google Scholar
Saignes, Thierry 1985 Los Andes Orientates: Historia de un olvido. Institut français d’études andines (IFEA) and Centra de estudios de la realidad económica y social (CERES), Cochabamba.Google Scholar
Salomon, Frank 1986 Native Lords of Quito in the Age of the Incas: The Political Economy of North Andean Chiefdoms. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro 1960 [1572] Historia de los Incas, Tomo 135. Ediciones Atlas, Madrid.Google Scholar
Schjellerup, Inge R. 1997 Incas and Spaniards in the Conquest of the Chachapoyas : Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Research in the North-eastern Andes of Peru. Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden.Google Scholar
Smith, Stuart 2002 Overthrowing the Nubians: The Archaeology of Ancient Egypt’s Empire in Nubia. Paper presented at the 66th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Stanish, Charles 2001 Regional Research on the Inca. Journal of Archeological Research 9(3):213–241.Google Scholar
Stehberg L., Ruben 1976 La Fortaleza Chena y su relación con la ocupación incaica de Chile Central. Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Santiago de Chile.Google Scholar
Sttefen, Jerome O. 1980 Comparative Frontiers: a Proposal for Studying the American West. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Susnik, Branislava 1968 El proceso de la conquista de la Cordillera. In Chiriguanos I: Dimensiones Etnosociales, pp. 162–206. Museo Etnográfico Andres Barbero, Asunción, Paraguay.Google Scholar
Susnik, Branislava 1975 Dispersion Tupi - Guaraní prehistorica: ensayo analitico. Museo Etnográfico Andres Barbero, Asunción, Paraguay.Google Scholar
Turner, Frederick Jackson 1993 History, Frontier, and Section. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Upham, Steadman 1986 Imperialists, Isolationists, World System and Political Realities: Perspectives on Mesoamerican-Southwestern Interaction. In Ripples in the Chichimec Sea: New Considerations of Southwestern-Mesoamerican Interactions, edited by Frances Joan Mathien and Randall H. McGuire, pp. 205–219. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Walter, Heinz 1968 Archaologische Studien in den Kordilleren Boliviens II: Beitrage Zur Archaeologie Boliviens. Baessler - Archiv. Beitrage zur Volkerkunde, Verlag Von Dietrich Reimer in Berlin, Berlin.Google Scholar
Whittaker, C. Richard 1994 Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study. Johns Hopkins University Press, London.Google Scholar