Andean History Research Articles

The Inca: Lost Civilizations

The Inca: Lost Civilizations

MODELING LONG-TERM HUMAN POPULATION DYNAMICS USING KERNEL DENSITY ANALYSIS OF 14C DATA IN THE ATACAMA DESERT (18º–21ºS)

ABSTRACTFood production is one of the most significant achievements in Andean history. The domestication of plants and animals presented an enormous challenge, relating to changing technologies, settlement patterns, and social organization. This paper aims to assess Atacama Desert population dynamics and their relationship to the domestication of plants and animals through chronological modeling using kernel density estimation on radiocarbon (14C) dates, assuming that a higher 14C probability density is related to more intense human occupation. The analysis is based on a 14C dataset comprising 1003 14C dates (between 11,000 and 150 BP) from 243 archaeological sites in the Arica and Tarapacá regions of northern Chile, collected from published data. We observed two population-dynamics inflection points for these regions. First, starting at ca. 3000 BP, constant population growth occurred, which was related to horticulture in the Arica region and to agriculture in the Tarapacá region. Second, between ca. 1000 and 400 BP, a general population rise occurred due to the consolidation of intensive agriculture in the lowlands and precordillera altitudinal belts in both regions and the integration of the coast and the altiplano into macro-regional population dynamics.

Ch'ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (review)

Reviewed by: Ch'ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui R. Aída Hernández Castillo (bio) Ch'ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui Polity Press, 2020 CH'IXINAKAX UTXIWA is the translation of a collection of essays that were first published in Spanish by the Argentinian publishing house Retazos & Tinta Limón in 2010. In these scant eighty-nine pages the author managed to unleash a political storm, as she transformed this book into a theoretical and methodological point of reference for decolonial studies in Latin America. More than ten years would go by before her work could be translated into English and her critiques against what she called the "colonial character of decolonial studies in the United States" could circulate through the Anglosphere's academia (59). Heir to the Latin American tradition of essay writing, the book does not have the formal structure of an academic text, as it combines political denunciation with epistemic and philosophical reflections. Thus, the work goes from sociohistorical analysis to the description of methodological routes and calls for political praxis. We could say we are faced with a "Ch'ixi" book, that is, a "motley text," to recover the concept the author proposes to refer to the Aymara understanding of a thing that is and is not at the same time, or the logic of "the included middle" (xx). Her literary style, not lacking in a touch of irony and sarcasm, is brilliantly transmitted in the English translation by Molly Geidel. The three essays that make up the book employ diverse perspectives to approach the need of a political economy of knowledge that articulates the decolonizing discourse through political practice. Those of us familiar with the activist and political history of Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui understand the ethical coherence to which she summons us through her writings. In this sense, the introductory essay of Verónica Gago leads us into a comprehensive historical journey through the life and works of this author whom she characterizes as "one of the most lucid, inventive and galvanizing intellectuals in our continent" (vii). In the first essay, entitled "Another Bicentennial," the author centers her analysis on the Tupaq Katari rebellion of 1781 as an ethnohistorical window to reflect about memory and the "unsaid," two recurring themes that run through her work since the creation of the Taller de Historia Oral Andina [End Page 135] (THOA) in the 1980s. In this chapter Rivera Cusicanqui presents her political concern for the place of memory in peoples' struggles. She proposes that the memory of this rebellion was present in the 2000 and 2005 cycle of uprisings by inhabitants of El Alto, in Bolivia. In the second chapter, "Sociology of Image: A View from Colonial Andean History" Rivera Cusicanqui utilizes the analysis of the First New Chronicle and Good Government by Waman Puma de Ayala, (1612—15) a thousand-page letter directed to the King of Spain, in order to develop her epistemic and methodological proposal of uncovering the "unsaid." Starting from the premise that words, under colonial contexts, tend to hide more than reveal the truths of the colonized, the author takes us through a detailed analysis of the iconography that illustrates the letters of Puma de Ayala. The third chapter, which gives the book its name, unleashed the debate around the limitations and appropriations of the decolonial studies produced in the English-speaking academy. The text comes very close to a political manifesto, where the author reveals the colonial contradictions that are concealed both by academic discourse in the United States and the official multiculturalist rhetoric in Bolivia. She denounces the adoption of postmodern and postcolonial "gestures" by the intellectual elites at the same time they reproduce epistemic hierarchies, denying the Latin American theoretical genealogies within their debates and appropriating and decontextualizing those whom they may get to cite. Calling these authors by their name, Silvia Rivera denounces that "Walter Mignolo and company have built a small empire within an empire, strategically appropriating the contributions of subaltern studies school of India and the Latin American variants of critical reflection on colonization and decolonization...

Antibiotic use by backyard food animal producers in Ecuador: a qualitative study

BackgroundAntibiotics are increasingly used throughout the world in food animal production for controlling and preventing disease and for promoting growth. But this trend also has the potential for promoting antibiotic resistance, which represents a threat to human, animal, and environmental health. The use of antibiotics and the potential effects of antibiotic dependence has often been associated with large-scale food animal production. But rural households also engage in small-scale production, often operating literally in backyards. While some small-scale producers use veterinary antibiotics, many do not. This paper examines knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and agricultural practices (KAP) that represent an alternative to dependence on antibiotics.MethodsQualitative field research was based on four focus group discussions (FGDs) with non-indigenous backyard food animal producers in four communities near Quito, Ecuador and two FGDs with veterinarians. FGDs were supplemented by structured observations and key informant interviews. They were recorded with digital audio devices and transcriptions were analyzed independently by two researchers using a three-stage coding procedure. Open coding identifies underlying concepts, while axial coding develops categories and properties, and selective coding integrates the information in order to identify the key dimensions of the collective qualitative data.ResultsBackyard food animal producers in the Ecuadorian highlands generally do not use antibiotics while rearing small batches of animals and poultry for predominantly non-commercial household consumption. Instead, they rely on low cost traditional veterinary remedies. These practices are informed by their Andean history of agriculture and a belief system whereby physical activity is a holistic lifestyle through which people maintain their health by participating in the physical and spiritual environment.ConclusionsBackyard food animal producers in the Ecuadorian highlands implement complex strategies based on both economic calculations and sociocultural underpinnings that shape perceptions, attitudes, and practices. They use traditional veterinary remedies in lieu of antibiotics in most cases because limited production of food animals in small spaces contributes to a predictable household food supply, while at the same time conforming to traditional concepts of human and environmental health.

Voices from Vilcabamba: Accounts Chronicling the Fall of the Inca Empire

Over more than three decades, Brian Bauer has been a constant, prolific leader in the expansion of anthropological and historical knowledge of the Inca and the ancient Andes more broadly, frequently involving students and other colleagues in research and publications that bridge the Spanish-English language barrier. In their recent book, Voices from Vilcabamba, Bauer and coauthors Madeleine Halac-Higashimori and Gabriel E. Cantarutti hew to this legacy. They present the decades (ca. 1536–1607) of historical struggle between the last Inca sovereigns, Spanish colonizers of various stripes, and other Indigenous groups throughout this rugged eastern Andean enclave. The volume consists of two short, densely detailed chapters of historical narrative, and five sections with English translations of early Spanish colonial documents (hence the plural “voices” from Vilcabamba).The first chapter covers the decades of Inca rule in exile, from Manco Inca’s rejection of Spanish co-rule in Cuzco to Viceroy Toledo’s administration, the invasion of the hardly accessible Vilcabamba, and the capture and execution of Tupac Amaru (in 1572). The second chapter deals with Spanish colonization of Vilcabamba from 1572 to circa 1607, concentrating on the tenure of governor Martín Hurtado de Arbieto, his unsuccessful campaigns to extend colonial control in the region, and settlement of colonial towns. Notwithstanding this general outline, one of the richest series of events—the history of Augustinian missionary to Vilcabamba, Diego Ortiz, and his afterlife as a candidate for sainthood—is included in the first chapter, even though its narrative arc extends beyond 1600. The organizational choice keeps thematic continuity: Ortiz was in Vilcabamba by Titu Cusi Yupanqui’s invitation and was killed on suspicion of involvement in the Inca’s 1571 death. However, in light of what the histories show of the mutability of social and political alliances and animosities in Inca and post-Inca Vilcabamba, this organization also illustrates how religious conversion or alliance making were not unilineal, irreversible chronological realizations, but instead processual.Following these summaries are sections with English translations of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Vilcabamba documents. A perennial challenge in introducing undergraduates (and attracting future specialists) to Andean ethnohistory is the amount of critical material in Spanish. On this score alone, Voices is valuable and most welcome. The opening section includes the first English translations of writings from Martín de Murúa’s influential Historia general del Perú (ca. 1590). Next is the (ca. 1611) testament of Baltasar de Ocampo Conejeros, covering “the final years of independent Inca kingship in the Andes” (109), and subsequent efforts to colonize Vilcabamba, including military campaigns against the Pilcosuni. Next comes Diego Rodríguez de Figueroa’s (1565) compellingly related eyewitness report of Titu Cusi and his comportment during their meeting in Vilcabamba. The fourth translation is from a chronicle by a Spanish functionary who accompanied “Toledo during the fall of Vilcabamba and may have personally witnessed the execution of Tupac Amaru” (177). The last section draws on testimonies from multiple documents produced in the Augustinian investigations into Ortiz’s death and possible saintly miracles effected by his buried body. These new and corroborating details are the authors’ hardest won, and they highlight the authors’ indefatigable and thorough “archival fieldwork.” Such disentangling of historical/historiographic threads drives home the merit and value in uniting these documents in one volume. Each document is situated within its sociohistorical context, and copious endnotes enhance both the book’s narrative and document portions. Most interesting for interdisciplinary approaches, the notes also mention archaeological research (often Bauer’s own) that bears on specific items in the narratives.The book is full of the sorts of passages that pique ethnohistorical interest in different peoples navigating different times. For instance, Rodríguez de Figueroa’s references to cannibal Amazonians and Europeans’ bargaining with glass beads will be familiar to ethnohistorians. Why, following Ortiz’s execution, did Vilcabamba Indians repurpose his vestments and dispose of the soil on which he had said mass? And did a battle really end when the Spanish governor convinced his Pilcosuni foes to doubt the damage they had inflicted by covering his several wounds with ash, as a Spaniard reported? In some cases (wisely, I think) the authors examine suggested interpretations, in others they simply include the detail and continue their historical narrative.Voices from Vilcabamba’s narratives and documents have already been used in advanced historical and anthropological research; surely, this will continue. The book should also interest scholars of Andean history and colonial interactions in the early modern period. The volume’s succinct but comprehensive narrative chapters and its translated documents are well suited for use in large introductory and upper-division “area studies” courses.

Ophir de España: Memorias historiales y políticas del Perú. Vaticinios de su descubrimiento y conversión por los Reyes Católicos y singulares epítetos que por ello se les da en la Sagrada Escritura

The aims of this comprehensive labor by Jesús Paniagua Pérez, Lorenzo Martínez Ángel, Antonio Reguera Feo, and Ferran Grau Codina are to introduce and publish all three books of the 1644 University of Seville manuscript Ophir de España: Memorias historiales y políticas del Perú by Fernando de Montesinos collectively for the first time. An endeavor such as this is an inspiring and overdue fulfillment of Montesinos's enduring dream to have the first half of his chronicle published. Paniagua Pérez provides readers with a brilliant 175-page informational and uncritical preamble, offered as part of a proper edition of Ophir de España.What serves as the insightful introduction to this edition is divided into four primary sections—“El momento histórico de Montesinos,” “Vida y obras de Fernando Montesinos,” “Las fuentes utilizadas por Montesinos,” and “Características de la obra de Montesinos”—that cover a wide array of topics. With a historical optic, Paniagua Pérez eloquently begins by placing Montesinos into historical context, touching on themes such Amazonia financial exploration, indigenous populations, indigenous labor, local mines, mining practices, mining and metallurgic innovations, Montesinos's time line and interests, and, most importantly, the financial decline in Spain and Peru during the seventeenth century.Subsequently, Paniagua Pérez delivers a detailed biography of Montesinos and a thorough explanation of his authorial projects by utilizing a number of notable sources. While this edition, as well as the biography and time line for Montesinos, would have indubitably benefited greatly from supplementary colonial archival research in South America—such as a firsthand interpretation of “Autos Alonso de Alarcón, albacea de Melchor Ramírez, difunto, contra el licenciado Fernando de Montesinos sobre más de quatro mil pesos de mercaderías que el difunto remitió para que las vendiese” (1635–41), found in the Archivo Arzobispal de Lima and first mentioned by Sergio Barraza-Lescano in “La dinastía prehispánica de Fernando de Montesinos: Identificacíon de su fuente” (2005)—the depth of European archival sources is commendable. Primary sources found in the University of Seville Library, such as Anales del Perú (1642), Ophir de España, Beneficio común o directorio de beneficiadores de metales y arte de ellos, con reglas ciertas para los negrillos (1638), Auto de la fe, celebrado en Lima a 23 de enero de 1639 (1639), and Montesinos's complete memorials, typically titled Servicios del licenciado don Fernando de Montesinos, presbítero (1644), are advantageously exploited.In the last two sections of the front matter, Paniagua Pérez discusses and outlines the exhaustive colonial sources that Montesinos uses in Ophir de España, with some of the more notable chroniclers being José de Acosta, Juan de Ávila, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Pedro Cieza de León, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Francisco López de Gómara, Alonso de Ovalle, Blas Valera, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Francisco de Xerez, and Agustín de Zárate. Likewise, Paniagua Pérez produces a breakdown of the basic components of Ophir de España, the assorted manuscripts and editions that exist today, a summary of the chronicle, and a description of the obvious Euro-Christianization and estimated Peruvian history: “Una constante que vamos a encontrar en toda su obra, es que su visión del mundo peruano, incluso del prehispánico, la hace a través de su propio ámbito cultural y de manera muy especial a través de la Biblia y de la visión cristiana—o mejor contrarreforma—del mundo” (p. 114). It is also, finally, important to note that Paniagua Pérez highlights in the introduction Montesinos's healthy curiosity in writing about the natural world.The clear, modernized Spanish transcription of Ophir de España is certainly the cornerstone of this complete first edition, taking up 461 pages. Such an attainment reunifies each of the books from this colonial Latin American chronicle for the first time since Montesinos penned his manuscript copies. Colonial Latin American literature, unfortunately, suffered from limited accessibility to printing, routine obstruction by nobles via required printing approvals, poor archival maintenance, and the lapse of time, among other factors. Due to these issues, the colonial canon is narrow and can always benefit from the rediscovery and publication of unpublished primary texts like Ophir de España, a point of interest that is currently being emphasized in colonial studies. Colonial scholars, philologists, historians, art historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists alike should take advantage of this edition and incorporate Montesinos's irreplaceable and unique version of colonial Peru and Andean history into their classrooms and research. This is an excellent starting point for full editions of Ophir de España. Future editions could profit from translations, modernizations, additional Latin American archival research, and mass publication.

Wak’a/shrine making and pilgrimage tourism in Copacabana, Bolivia

The cultural landscape of the town of Copacabana and nearby ancient sites on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, have functioned as magnetic places of pilgrimage from Inka times to the present. They are analyzed as landscape constructions through the eyes of political and religious authorities as well as through those of the common pilgrims in a bottom-up perspective from Inka to Colonial times and to the present. Methodologies used are study of pertaining archaeological data and Colonial documents complemented by ethnographic interviews and participant observation. The data demonstrate how the past is redefined in the present as local heritage in a landscape perceived as Andean as well as Christian. Throughout Andean history, Copacabana has been the land terminal for pilgrims to set over to the Islands of the Sun and Moon to visit empowered shrines (wak’as) viewed as places of emergence of the Sun and the first humans. This pilgrimage was fabricated into state ideology by the Inka from ca. A.D.1450–1550. After the Spanish invasion, Copacabana became the seat of a widely revered Virgin who attracts pilgrims from all over Bolivia and southern Peru. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in early August 2015 and 2017 during one of the pilgrimages. Most visitors identify as pilgrim-tourists and many walk to five spatially distinct but thematically related wak’ as at which the past coalesces with the present and the secular with the divine in passionate and colorful performances for family wellbeing. Discussions center on the limited spatial control of the Catholic Church and on the growing practice of making new wak’as in Andean terms to the Virgin at selected landscape features outside of town as a form of popular heritage. Findings demonstrate that local Aymara people are not passive Colonial victims but selectively adopt from their conquerors what they hope may help alleviate poverty.

On the Pursuit of Good Living in Highland Ecuador: Critical Indigenous Discourses of Sumak Kawsay

Sumak kawsay, a vision of good living originating in the thought of indigenous intellectuals, has attracted many commentators since its incorporation into Ecuador’s 2008 constitution. But it remains unclear in much of the secondary literature how the discourse of sumak kawsay and its Spanish derivative buen vivir relate to the day-to-day experiences of indigenous people. We address this lack of clarity through a three-part exploration of Kichwa perspectives on the good life. First, we describe how day-to-day discussions are more likely to revolve around the actually existing life of struggle. Then we analyze an artistic genre that illustrates how decolonized indigenous lives might look. Finally, we examine how the decolonial political philosophy of sumak kawsay has emerged out of concerted collective efforts to overcome the life of struggle. We consider how these three instances of discourse relate to a long Andean history of looking to the past for an alternative to the hardships of the present, and conclude with a call to take indigenous perspectives more fully into account when concepts such as sumak kawsay are invoked by nonindigenous actors.

Andean caravan ceremonialism in the lowlands of the Atacama Desert: The Cruces de Molinos archaeological site, northern Chile

Camelid caravans have played a key role in the complex systems of interregional social interaction that characterizes Andean history. In the northernmost region of Chile, the most frequent archaeological indicators of these caravan systems are trails and rock art images. Cruces de Molinos (LL-43), a rock art site in the Lluta valley, 1100 masl, 40 km from the Pacific littoral, expands the ceremonial role of rock art sites, materialized, not only as regards the iconography portrayed and alluding to these practices, but also in terms of articulated carcass remains and detached anatomical units of camelids, intentionally deposited in a cache beneath one of the engraved blocks. This paper analyzes the site considering the visual imagery, spatial location, archaeological deposits and features associated with rock art.Based on the predominance of camelid and caravan motifs in rock art images, the extraordinary setting and location of the site on the valley's upper slopes, which is far removed from local settlements, but closely connected with a llama caravan trade network linking the chaupiyunga ecozone with the highlands (sierra and Altiplano ecozones), we suggest that Cruces de Molinos was not a rest stop for caravanners, but a ceremonial place, and not for local farmers, but for highland herders. According to seven accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates that place the occupation between cal. 1060–1190 CE in the Late Intermediate period.

The role of the slab pull force in the late Oligocene to early Miocene extension in the Southern Central Andes (27°-46°S): Insights from numerical modeling

Although extensional deformation plays a significant part of Andean history, the causes behind its driving mechanisms and its impact throughout the geological record remain controversial. Through the aid of numerical modeling of subduction zone dynamics, we were able to reproduce a brief period of intra-arc basin formation that affected the Southern Central Andes (27°-46°S) during late Oligocene and early Miocene times. The results of the model show that, after a period of slow subduction (6–8 cm/yr), the oceanic plate approaches the mantle transition zone at ca. 23 Ma, triggering the slab pull force. The addition of this slab pull force generates a progressive increase in convergence velocity (reaching ∼20 cm/yr) and the retreat of the trench hinge away from the upper plate, resulting in the steepening of the slab. Effects observed in the upper plate are the formation of a basin located 200–300 km east of the trench and an asthenospheric influx beneath an 800 km wide zone east of the oceanic and continental plate's boundary. A series of parameters extracted from our model, such as the basin depth and the stretching factor, indicate that crustal stretching, basin formation, convergence velocity and asthenospheric influx would have reached their climax approximately at 20 Ma. These results are in good correlation with the convergence rate obtained through plate reconstructions and the geological record along the Southern Central Andes, where a series of extensional intra-arc basins were created and mantle derived magmatic processes affected a wide area ranging between the present fore-arc and retroarc areas during late Oligocene to early Miocene times. However, differences in extension magnitude, magma composition and basin fill depositional environment are observed, indicating that the impact of the slab pull force was stronger towards the southern basins. Possible causes that could explain these differences are variations in crustal thickness before the influence of the slab pull force and the effect of toroidal mantle flow near the southern lateral slab edge. This would indicate that although the main parameter controlling tectonic regime is the absolute motion of the overriding plate, the slab pull force may leave its imprint along the evolution of subduction-type orogens such as the Andes.

Tectonic Regimes of the Central and Southern Andes: Responses to Variations in Plate Coupling During Subduction

AbstractConstruction of the Andes has been governed largely by fluctuating contractional, neutral, and extensional tectonic regimes during differing degrees of mechanical coupling along the convergent plate boundary. These three contrasting regimes are likely regulated by geodynamic variations in absolute trenchward motion of South America and episodic regional shifts in the geometry of the subducting oceanic slab. Alternations among these three modes are revealed in syntheses of Mesozoic‐Cenozoic crustal deformation, basin evolution, and arc magmatism along orogen‐perpendicular transects across the central and southern Andes at 23°S, 35°S, and 43°S. Despite considerable along‐strike dissimilarities in the magnitude of deformation, a comparable tectonic regime typified the early Andean history, as defined by a transition from Late Jurassic‐Early Cretaceous postrift thermal subsidence to Late Cretaceous retroarc shortening. A key contradiction is expressed for the late middle Eocene to earliest Miocene, when neutral to extensional conditions affected retroarc to forearc regions, except in parts of the central Andes, which experienced retroarc shortening with only localized forearc extension. This mixed‐mode scenario during Paleogene time may reflect decoupling along the plate boundary (possibly during slab rollback within a retreating subduction system) in which widespread stasis or low‐magnitude extension dominated the southern Andes but was inhibited in the strongly shortened central Andes at 15–25°S where shallow subduction and/or high topography boosted plate coupling. Comparable temporal and spatial shifts in tectonic regime along the Andes and other convergent margins can be related to variable degrees of coupling during first‐order plate‐scale changes in convergence and second‐order regional cycles of slab shallowing and steepening.

Reconstructing diet and mobility using multi-isotopic analysis in Apurimac, Peru (~ AD 880–1260)

The unraveling of the Wari Empire circa AD 1000 is marked by violent political upheaval and climate change. Such social, economic, and environmental disruptions are often accompanied by significant shifts in human diet and mobility in affected populations. We examine diachronic change through isotopic analysis of human remains from an early burial site (Turpo; AD 880–990) and three later sites (Cachi, Ranracancha, and Pucullu; ~ AD 1100–1260), all from the Apurimac highlands of south central Peru. Carbon, oxygen, and strontium from tooth enamel are used to explore changes in diet and mobility in 43 sampled individuals. Due to the tumultuous transition and increased violence that occurred as Wari influence waned, we expect to see visible shifts in dietary and mobility patterns between individuals sampled from earlier and later sites. Specifically, we hypothesized that populations at later sites would exhibit a wider dietary spread, a more circumscribed use of water, and an increased degree of mobility as mechanisms for dealing with changing social, political, and environmental factors. These changes would also be reflected in individual isotope profiles, with the hypothesized changes at the later sites revealed through increased standard deviation of carbon isotope values, decreased standard deviation of oxygen isotope values, and the presence of outlier strontium isotope values, as compared with the values from the earlier site. Results support the argument that human diet and movement were affected by the political, social, and environmental upheavals that marked this key transition period in Andean history from the Middle Horizon (~ AD 600–1000) to the Late Intermediate Period (~ AD 1000–1450).

Power in/of/as water: Revisiting the hydrologic cycle in the Peruvian Andes

Water is important not only as a natural resource but also as an object of political empowerment, social meaning, and cultural imagination. To unpack the social nature of water, the article examines it as “a total human‐material fact” which implies enquiring into water's fundamental properties, that is, its transgressive, transmutable, transparent characteristics, and exploring how the different forms of powers they engender impinge on human life. One such power is the power in water (its physical force), another the power of water (its social and political bearings), and a third the power as water (its cultural and imaginary potential). The article argues that regions suffering from chronic water scarcity are particularly pertinent to the study of water's agentive powers. The Peruvian Andes constitutes such a field site. Reviewing regional literature on Andean history and contemporary culture the article explores how water's multiple forces impact Peru's current water crisis and shape Andean people's struggle for social recognition. Moreover, the article employs the notion of the hydrosocial cycle to examine the author's own ethnographic data discussing two cases that in opposite ways illustrate people's perceptions of water and the way the convergence of its agentive powers constitutes a “total fact” in the Andes. It concludes that even though the discussion is focused on the regional context that shapes Andean water struggles, the two cases document something universal about water: its unique quality to represent raw physical power, malleable social and political power, and soft imaginative power at one and the same time. WIREs Water 2018, 5:e1270. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1270This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Science of Water > Water Extremes

Comunidades campesinas y reforma agraria en Huancavelica

Este artículo presenta a través de hechos protagonizadas por las comunidades campesinas del departamento de Huancavelica, las luchas por la tierra durante el proceso de reforma agraria. La línea temporal sigue desde la constitución de la SAIS Huancavelica hasta 1980, año en que Sendero Luminoso irrumpe en la región, iniciando de este modo un nuevo capítulo en la historia de los Andes.

Reiner Tom Zuidema (1927–2016)

Reiner Tom Zuidema (1927–2016)

Siete notas andinas para pensar la ética

The article proposes seven annotations that come from Andean conceptions and practices, which seek to contribute to the reflection on the meaning that ethics has in these times, taking into account the current Quechua language. In this perspective, the article proposes that ethics ( yachakuy ) is a permanent reflexive practice that is inserted in the current Andean history, where people live with nature and make history to the extent that it considers mutual care and human responsibility as indispensable for a coexistence and true peace.

La Relación de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui: un reflejo de la ética andina

La Relación de Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua es un texto colonial singular y uno de los pocos en contarnos episodios andinos prehispánicos de la mano de un miembro de una comunidad indígena. Sin embargo, aunque haya dado lugar a un número bastante grande de estudios y críticas, todavía no se ha llegado a un consenso completo a saber si sus contenidos son auténticamente andinos o el resultado de un proceso de aculturación. En este artículo, queremos reexaminar esta obra monumental desde un punto de vista poco trabajado, es decir, la posible postura que adoptó Pachacuti Yamqui al escribir su relación y que deja aparecer a través de su utilización de las tradiciones discursivas y el sujeto dicente de la obra.

Settlement Organization and Architecture in Late Intermediate Period Chachapoyas, Northeastern Peru

Chachapoya societies that lived on the forested eastern slopes of the Andes in northern Peru between A.D. 1000 and 1450 remain largely absent from broader narratives of the Andean Late Intermediate period (LIP). This paper argues that environmentally deterministic frameworks and lingering Inka biases have led scholars to problematically isolate Chachapoyans from their highland contemporaries. This work reviews three aspects of Chachapoya built environments—settlement patterning, internal organization, and architectural style—in order to provide a baseline for comparison with other regions. Chachapoyas shared a pattern of hilltop settlement locations with nearly all of the highlands, which suggests that its inhabitants faced the same shared factors that prompted changes in settlement organization on a massive scale in this region during the LIP. At the same time, comparison of Chachapoya built environments with others of the northern, central, and southern highlands highlights the considerable diversity within and between regions. This demonstrates that Chachapoyas is best interpreted as simply one of many regions that were characterized by distinctive spatlalltles and architectural forms. These reflected locally specific cultural practices and social institutions. Including Chachapoyas and other regions of the Eastern Andes in accounts of the LIP underscores the diversity and dynamism that characterized this period of significant change in Andean history.

The Course of Andean History - by Henderson, Peter V. N.

The Course of Andean History - by Henderson, Peter V. N.

Peter V. N. Henderson, The Course of Andean History (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press , 2013), pp. xvii + 377, $34.95, hb.

Peter V. N. Henderson, The Course of Andean History (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press , 2013), pp. xvii + 377, $34.95, hb.