Variations in the Expression of Inka Power

Until recently, little archaeological investigation has been dedicated to the Inka, the last great culture to flourish in Andean South America before the sixteenth-century arrival of the Spaniards. While the Inka have been traditionally viewed through the textual sources of early colonial histories, this volume draws on recent archaeological research to challenge theories on the chronology and development of the Inka Empire and how this culture spread across such a vast area. The volume demonstrates the great regional diversity of the Inka realm, with strategies of expansion that were shaped to meet a variety of local situations beyond the capital in Cusco. Using a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, scholars from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities provide a new understanding of Inka culture and history.

Richard L. Burger is the Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology at Yale University and Curator of South American Archaeology at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Craig Morris was Curator of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Ramiro Matos Mendieta is Curator at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

Joanne Pillsbury is Andrall E. Pearson Curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Gary Urton is Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University.