Foundations of Power in the Prehispanic Andes

This title investigates how the issue of power is approached by scholars of the South American Andes. It represent a wide range of regional, temporal, methodological, and theoretical perspectives on the prehispanic Andes from the Preceramic Period (representing the earliest sedentary societies) through the Late Horizon (the expansionary phase of the Inca Empire). It brings together an array of approaches-both theoretical and methodological - as they are currently being employed by archaeologists in the Andes. It enriches the study of the emergence of complex societies, the origins of the state, and dynamics of sociopolitical organization in well-known societies like the Chav'yn, Nasca, Wari, Tiwanaku, and Inca and in less-well-known groups, such as the pre- and post-Tiwanaku societies of the altiplano and the Late Intermediate Period groups of the south coast of Peru.