Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T22:03:25.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reconceiving the Chronology of Inca Imperial Expansion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Dennis E Ogburn
Dennis E Ogburn*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Anthropology, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, North Carolina 28223, USA. Email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The basic chronology of Inca imperial expansion in Andean South America derives from historical accounts from the Spanish Colonial era, but several issues with this traditional chronology have arisen in recent decades. Advances in radiocarbon dating and calibration now give us some ability to refine or rebuild the chronology, and guidelines for obtaining the most useful dates are discussed. Dates recently obtained from the site of Chamical in the southern highlands of Ecuador are evaluated according to those guidelines, and they suggest Inca expansion to the north began 1 to 2 decades earlier than allowed in the traditional chronology. The chronology of Inca expansion presented in the Spanish chronicles is called into question by these and other dates, and by a reconsideration of the nature of sources of Inca history utilized by Spanish writers. Evidence suggests a primary Inca form of recording provincial conquests resulted in lists that were ordered geographically. However, those records were interpreted by colonial writers as being chronologically ordered, which led to written histories of Inca expansion that are not consistent with the actual historical sequence of events. As a result, the preferred approach to building a chronology of Inca expansion should be based on 14C dates, with historical sources used to supplement rather than structure the timeline.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , 2012 , pp. 219 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

Adamska, A, Michczyński, A. 1996. Towards radiocarbon chronology of the Inca State. Andes - Boletín de la Misión Arqueológica Andina 1:35–60.Google Scholar
Bauer, B. 1992. The Development of the Inca State. Austin: University of Texas Press. 185 p.Google Scholar
Betanzos, J. 1987. Suma y narración de los Incas [1551]. Martin Rubio M, transcriber. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas. 317 p. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–60.Google Scholar
Cabello Balboa, M. 1945. Obras, Volume 1 [1586]. Quito: Editorial Ecuatoriana. 451 p. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Cieza de León, P. 1985. La crónica del Perú segunda parte (El señorío de los Incas) [1553]. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú Fondo Editorial. 238 p. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Covey, RA. 2006. Chronology, succession, and sovereignty: the politics of Inka historiography and its modern interpretation. Comparative Studies in Society and History 48(1):169–99.Google Scholar
D'Altroy, T, Williams, V, Lorandi, AM. 2007. The Inkas in the southlands. In: Burger, R, Morris, C, Matos, R, editors. Variations in the Expression of Inka Power. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, p 85–133.Google Scholar
Finucane, BC, Valdez, JE, Pérez Calderon, I, Vivanco Pomacanchari, C, Valdez, LM, O'Connell, T. 2007. The end of empire: new radiocarbon dates from the Ayacucho Valley, Peru, and their implications for the collapse of the Wari State. Radiocarbon 49(2):579–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garreaud, R. 2009. The Andes climate and weather. Advances in Geosciences 7:1–9.Google Scholar
Julien, C. 2000. Reading Inca History. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. 350 p.Google Scholar
Julien, C. 2008. Incas nietos de conquistadores (1569). In Pillsbury, J., editor. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies 1530-1900. Volume II. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, p 311–2.Google Scholar
Levillier, R. 1940. Don Francisco de Toledo, supremo organizador del Perú; su vida, su obra (1515-1582). Tomo II. Buenos Aires: Biblioteca del Congreso Argentino. 646 p. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Lippi, R, Gudiño, A. 2010. Inkas and Yumbos at Palmitopamba in northwestern Ecuador. In: Malpass, M, Alconini, S, editors. Distant Provinces in the Inka Empire. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, p 260–78.Google Scholar
Mayle, F, Burbridge, R, Killeen, T. 2000. Millennial-scale dynamics of southern Amazonian rain forests. Science 290(5500):2291–4.Google Scholar
McCormac, F, Reimer, P, Hogg, A, Higham, T, Baillie, M, Palmer, J, Stuiver, M. 2002. Calibration of the radiocarbon time scale for the Southern Hemisphere: AD 1850-950. Radiocarbon 44(3):641–51.Google Scholar
McCormac, F, Hogg, A, Blackwell, P, Buck, C, Higham, T, Reimer, P. 2004. SHCal04 Southern Hemisphere calibration, 0-11.0 cal kyr BP. Radiocarbon 46(3):1087–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McEwan, G. 2008. The Incas: New Perspectives. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. 269 p.Google Scholar
Menzel, D. 1959. The Inca occupation of the south coast of Peru. Southwest Journal of Anthropology 15(2):125–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murúa, M. 2001. Historia general del Perú [1590]. Madrid: Dastin. 571 p. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Ogburn, D. 2004. Evidence for long-distance transport of andesite building blocks in the Inca Empire from Cuzco, Peru to Saraguro, Ecuador. Latin American Antiquity 15(4):419–39.Google Scholar
Pärssinen, M. 1992. Tawantinsuyu, the Inca State and Its Political Organization. Helsinki: SHS. 462 p.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Baillie, MGL, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Blackwell, PG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Buck, CE, Burr, GS, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP, Hajdas, I, Heaton, TJ, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kaiser, KF, Kromer, B, McCormac, FG, Manning, SW, Reimer, RW, Richards, DA, Southon, JR, Talamo, S, Turney, CSM, van der Plicht, J, Weyhenmeyer, CE. 2009. IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0-50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51(4):1111–50.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. 1944. An Introduction to the Archaeology of Cuzco. Cambridge: Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. 69 p.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. 1945. Absolute chronology in the Andean area. American Antiquity 10(3):265–84.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. 1946. Inca culture at the time of the Spanish conquest. In: Steward, J, editor. Handbook of South American Indians. Volume 2. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, p 183–330.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. 1962. Stages and periods in archaeological interpretation. Southwest Journal of Anthropology 18(1):40–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, J. 1985. Probanza de los Incas nietos de conquistadores. Histórica IX(2):193–245. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. 2008. A question of time: Juan de Betanzos and the narrative of the Incas. Julien C, translator. Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 29:155–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sachs, J, Sachse, D, Smittenberg, R, Zhang, Z, Battisti, D, Golubic, S. 2009. Southward movement of the Pacific intertropical convergence zone AD 1400-1850. Nature Geoscience 2:519–25.Google Scholar
Sarmiento de Gamboa, P. 2007. The History of the Incas [1572]. Bauer, B, Smith, V, translators. Austin: University of Texas Press. 266 p.Google Scholar
Schiappacasse, V. 1999. Cronología del Estado Inca. Estudios Atacameños 18:133–40. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Williams, V, D'Altroy, T. 1998. El sur del Tawantinsuyu: un dominio selectivamente intensivo. Tawantinsuyu 5:170–8. In Spanish.Google Scholar
Zuidema, RT. 1964. The Ceque System of Cuzco: The Social Organization of the Capital of the Inca. Leiden: EJ Brill. 256 p.Google Scholar
Zuidema, RT. 1982. Myth and history in ancient Peru. In: Rossi, I, editor. The Logic of Culture: Advances in Structural Theory and Methods. South Hadley: JF Bergin.p 150–75.Google Scholar