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RELIGIOUS CONTROL IN TAWANTINSUYU
James A. Davenport
ANTH532: Indigenous Peoples of South America
May 8th, 2012
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In Andean South America, there is a long antiquity of state-level societies, dating as far
back as the Preceramic period from 4900 BP to 3200 BP (Haas et al. 2005). Many states came
and went, manifesting and expressing themselves in vastly different ways with a variety of
artistic styles, cosmologies, and political structures over time. The collapse of Wari and
Tiwanaku at the end of the Middle Horizon left the Andean world balkanized, with many small,
competing polities that were culturally diverse existing in the power vacuum left by the absence
of these states (Arkush and Stanish 2005). It was on this "fluctuating central Andean political
landscape where populations of varying size created distinct ethnic identities, economic systems,
and social structures" (Covey 2008:289), the Inka Empire emerged.
The Inka Empire came to dominate the landscape during the Late Horizon (AD 1476 to
AD 1534), incorporating over 12 million subjects and over eighty subject polities (D'Altroy and
Bishop 1990). These polities varied greatly in terms of level of complexity, languages,
ideologies, political systems, and geographic setting. As a result, to conquer and maintain
control over their vast and diverse territory, the Inka adapted differing, flexible techniques for
administration depending on "the complexities and capacities of indigenous societies, diversity
in regional resources, and logistical and security considerations (D'Altroy and Bishop 1990:120).
Some societies were easily brought into the Inka hegemony, while others with established elites,
political hierarchies and belief systems were resistant to imperial control (Covey 2006).
One particular strategy used by the Inka was ideological control. Ideological control is at
the same time one of the most elusive and one of the most effective means in which an empire
can control its subjects (Bauer and Stanish 2001). There is evidence that the Inka put a great deal
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of effort and resources into this control in an effort to pacify and govern the empire's subjects
effectively.
RELIGION IN ARCHAEOLOGY
While ideology in its own nature is elusive, it is especially elusive to archaeologists,
especially those that study societies that do not have developed writing systems. While physical
remains of things like craft production and architecture are often readily available, the belief
systems that peoples of the past held and lived by remain far more difficult to detect.
Nonetheless, it can often be one of the most important facets of prehistoric societies, and in many
cases can be the cause for why a ceramic is decorated in a certain manner, or why a structure is
laid out the way it is. Even through today, ideology remains an important part of society as a
"basis for intense solidarities, interwoven with, and often fundamental to, national and ethnic
identities" (Edwards 2005:110).
Despite this importance, there is a reluctance to address ritual and ideology in
archaeological investigations. Many archaeologists treat ideology as "primarily intangible,
elusive, and unknowable" (Howey and O'Shea 2006:261). Its transient and unverifiable nature
make it hard to address within the realm of processual or scientific approaches. The theoretical
framework of processual archaeology has been critiqued as adhering to an "extreme cultural
materialism" (Spencer 1997:218) that ignores ideological factors as unimportant or
epiphenomenal. Christopher Hawkes (1954) devised a four-tiered system of archaeological
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inference that was held in high regard in the field for a long time due to its logical nature, and
came to be known as the "ladder of inference" (Robb 1988:330). Hawkes believes that
archaeological phenomena can be ranked in order of easiest to infer to most obscure: 1)
techniques for the production of archaeological phenomena; 2) the subsistence economics of
human groups; 3) social and political institutions of groups; and 4) religious institutions and
spiritual life of groups (Hawkes 1954:161-162). While Hawkes recognizes that religious
institutions and spiritual life exist in the archaeological record, he deems the identification of
these phenomena too difficult to be discussed with any certainty and should not be attempted
(Hawkes 1954:162). Nonetheless, ideology remains both an important part of the lives of
prehistoric peoples and a tangible part of the archaeological record, especially in the Andes.
Jerry Moore (1996:122) writes:
"Based on the data from the ethnographic present and vast references to the
ethnohistoric past, the central significance of Andean ritual is certain. Everything
we know about the Andes points to the essential nature of rite, and the historical
significance of Andean ritual is a simple fact whether or not archaeologists
acknowledge it. Ritual is not insignificant, epiphenomenal, or unamenable to
archaeological inquiry."
Though it is clear that ritual is important, there still is not consensus amongst
archaeologists how it should be investigated. Several recent attempts at creating both a
theoretical framework and approach in which to view ritual and ideology as well as a set of
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archaeological expectations for the manifestation of ritual in ideology in archaeology are
discussed here.
John Robb (1998) has more recently addressed Hawkess ladder of inference
and the study of symbols in archaeology. He has criticized the reduction of signs or symbols as
purely material and the forced dichotomy between a visible, tangible material world and
invisible ideas and feelings, between hard scientific approaches and soft humanistic
approaches, and between objective knowledge and subjective opinion (Robb 1998:330). He
believes that there is a double standard present between symbolic and economic archaeologies.
The division of archaeology into categories of material and symbolic is detrimental to the
understanding of prehistoric society, and denies that economy can be fundamentally cultural, and
that ideas are embodied in material practices (Robb 1998:331). Indeed, ideology can be seen as
a central element of a cultural system and a source of social power (DeMarrais et. al.
1996:15). Robb further gives an example of this double standard to further illustrate his point:
If we understand how a prehistoric rock carving was made technologically
without knowing why it was made culturally, the effort is considered a failure and
symbolic archaeology is pronounced impossible. But if we understand how
prehistoric people produced their food technologically without knowing the
cultural reasons why they produced what and how much they did in the way they
did, the effort is considered a successful demonstration of economic archaeology;
never mind that we have reduced a complex, value-laden set of social relations to
a simple faunal inference [Robb 1998:331].
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In this reevaluation of the role of symbols in archaeology, symbols become inseparable from
economic and material use, and symbols should not be seen as irrational or ethereal but as
rationalized and concrete (Robb 1998:331). It should be noted that Hawkes never intended his
ladder of inference to be a blanket statement for all of archaeology. Rather, it was intended to
apply only to contexts where there were no relevant historical or ethnohistorical sources (Fogelin
2008:129).
In his defense of the necessity of symbolic archaeology, Robb outlines three main views
for the consideration of symbols in archaeology: symbols as tokens, symbols as girders, and
symbols as tesserae (Robb 1998:332). In the symbols as tokens, or information transmission
view, the main purpose of symbols is to serve as instruments of communication. Binford (1962)
argued that a symbol in material form may indicate predictable economies of representation. In
this model, an exotic artifact can indicate long-distance exchange, a monumental structure can
show the ability to command labor, different (and elaborate) clothing can indicate special societal
status (Robb 1998:332). In a sense, all symbols are created with the purpose of conveying a
message to those that look upon them. This model of symbols has proved useful in evaluating
strategies of political leadership (DeMarrais et. al. 1996) and prestige goods exchange (Saitta
2000).
In the symbols as girders, or the mental reality approach, is a structuralist approach into
how symbols constituted and structured the mental and social world of ancient people (Robb
1998:334-335). This has sometimes been called cognitive archaeology, and focuses on symbols
as mental structures for framing the cultural world and structuring thought process (Robb
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1998:335). The most important component of this model is that humans will think and act
through learned, culturally specific structures that recur wherever they organize themselves and
their material productions (Robb 1998:335). Thus, in this model, through symbols we can
begin to understand the framework in which all decisions of a society are (consciously or
subconsciously) made.
Robbs final model for the archaeological interpretation of symbols, symbols as
tesserae or the poststructuralist critique, rejects the notion in both approaches that symbols are
imbued with meaning. Meaning resides neither in artifacts nor people, but rather it resides in the
moment of interaction between both of them (Thomas 1996:97), and the meanings of symbols do
not exist outside of this moment. This ethereal nature of the meaning of symbols means that
there is a constant variation in the interpretation of important symbols through time. This view
rejects structuralist interpretations of symbols as essentializing or totalizing (Robb 1998:338),
and archaeologists are required to carry out close contextual analysis with regard to symbols, as
their meanings can and do change.
This discussion of symbols is important in the archaeological investigation of ideology.
With the exception of societies with written records or societies that made contact with other
literate people, symbols are one of the few avenues of evidence available for understanding
ideology. Fogelin (2008:130, emphasis in original) argues that religions aresystems of symbols
and not unconstrained, free-floating units, an idea originally proposed by Geertz (1966). Geertz
argues that this system of symbols acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods
in motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence, and clothing
these conceptions with such an order of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely
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realistic (Geertz 1966:4). Furthermore, even in those societies with written records, there
remains the strong possibility for bias from the observer, especially in the case of those societies
who were observed by Spanish missionaries, whose main objective was to convert the
indigenous population to Christianity and regarded the extant faiths as paganism or idolatry (de
Landa 1978 [1566]).
In a separate analysis of Hawkes treatise, Fogelin (2008) argues that the archaeological
study of religion is conceptually simple. Arguing that religions are systems of deliberate,
connected symbols, he suggests that the study of ideology can begin with the aspects of a past
religion that are the most obvious or manifested clearly materially, and the easiest to identify.
From there, one can move onto the next easiest repeatedly. Though this systematic analysis,
key symbols might be identified that can orient and constrain large portions of a religious
system (Fogelin 2008:130-131). Ultimately, he concludes that the archaeology of religion is as
easy or as difficult as any other branch of archaeological research and should proceed in pretty
much the same way (Fogelin 2008:131). Critics of the archaeology of religion have focused on
the aspects that are most unknowable, and as a result have applied unreasonable standards for
its acceptance (Fogelin 2008:132). This focus on the abstract relates back to Robbs (1998)
argument of a double standard present between symbolic and material archaeologies. While
there are certainly aspects of religion that cannot be understood archaeology, the same is true
about economies and other more common focuses for research.
A recent study by Meghan Howey and John OShea (2006) has challenged commonly
accepted strategies of reviewing religion and ideology in archaeology. An overwhelming
majority of archaeological research dealing with religion draws from ethnology, ethnohistory,
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and oral traditions or forklore. Indeed, it is commonplace for archaeological material to be
interpreted directly in terms of either ethnology, folklore, iconography, or astronomy (Brown
1997:470). Even Hawkes suggests this as a possible means of uncovering the obscure nature of
ritual in the archaeological record (1954:162). Howey and OShea suggest that these sources are
viewed as superior because they are derived from living people who can describe intangible
beliefs and cosmologies (2006:261). This is viewed at times as essentialist, because it assumes
that primitive, non-world religions and peoples are static and unchanging, stuck in time like
Saids orientalism (Rowan 2011).
In their analysis of the Missaukee earthworks in northern lower Michigan, Howey and
OShea reject this dependence on ethnographic or ethnohistoric analogy in the study of ritual and
religion in archaeology. Despite being able to see similarities in their archaeological site with
ethnohistoric descriptions of ritual and connect it to its meaning, they maintain that the meaning
itself is not important, and the purpose of the site could be discerned without this ethnographic
analogy. They argue that
through the rigorous analysis of this kind of patterning, prehistoric archaeology
has the potential to discover and understand ancient ritual. This is not the
meaning of ritual, as we cannot know the name of the ritual, or what each of the
features and activities specifically symbolized, or document the story that makes
sense of the specific symbols. We can, however, build up a structural
understanding of what was involved in the ritual activity, who and how many
people attended, how often it occurred, during what season, from how far the
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participants traveled, and what kinds of social or integrative functions the ritual
might have served (Howey and OShea 2009:195).
Joyce Marcus (2007) discusses in detail proposed archaeological constraints for
identifying and studying ritual. Building off of work by Catherine Bell (1992, 1997), Marcus
suggests that the following criteria be defined as components of ritual: 1) one or more
performers; 2) an audience (humans, deities, ancestors); 3) a location (a temple, field, patio,
stairway cave, top of an altar); 4) a purpose (to communicate with ancestors, sanctify a new
temple); 5) meaning, subject matter, and content; 6) temporal span (hour, day, week); 7) actions
(chanting, singing, playing music, dancing, wearing masks and costumes, burning incense,
bloodletting, sacrificing humans or animals, smoking, making pilgrimages to caves or
mountaintops); and 8) foods and paraphernalia used in the performance of rites (Marcus
2007:48). These criteria are intended to strictly define rituals, and as such are intentionally
broad. Additionally, Marcus suggests that the components most likely to be recovered are
locations and paraphernalia, as opposed to meanings, songs, dances, etc. (Marcus 2007:48).
Marcus also suggests strategies of excavation and techniques that archaeologists can use
to aide them in the identification of ritual. These include 1) collecting ritual data from more
meaningful contexts; 2) documenting the diverse roles played by ritual; 3) explaining the fit (or
lack thereof) between ethnohistoric and archaeological data on ritual; and 4) use residue analyses
to determine the perishable contents of ritual vessels, caches, offering boxes, and tombs (Marcus
2007:43). Through the employment of these guiding principles, Marcus argues that
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archaeologists will be better equipped to identify ritual in the archaeological record and to study
and discuss the purpose, nature, utility and function of ritual in prehistoric societies.
A recent perspective presented by Mark Aldenderfer (2011) presents a pragmatic
approach for the archaeology of religion. Aldenderfer suggests that archaeologists should be
more interested in what religion does than what it is (2011:24). He proposes that archaeologists
should attempt to view religion in the archaeological record as an enabler used by agents, and as
transformative. In examining this, he proposes that archaeologists use a combination of
techniques. The first of these techniques is philosophical pragmatism. Aldenderfer believes that
no single theoretical perspective can nor should hope to capture what religion and its material
representation mean, precisely becausereligion sits at the nexus of multiple social, cognitive,
and behavioral domains (2011:25, italics in original). In addition to philosophical pragmatism,
Aldenderfer argues that the use of any theory must take place within a context of evidential
constraints and accepted bodies of independent data that can be used to test and examine the
assumptions, linking arguments, and contents of these theories (2011:26). Framing these
theoretical frameworks in context can inform the archaeologists of how to look for the multiple
roles of religion in past societies and when the manipulation of religion might take on heightened
significance (Aldenderfer 2011:28). Lastly, Aldenderfer argues for the use of contrasts as a way
to examine how artifactual assemblages or archaeological evidence differs or changes and thus
are significant in illuminating religion through material culture.
Also relevant to this study, Jerry Moore (1996) and Alan Covey (2006) have defined
several archaeological markers for imperial control. Among these markers are: 1) the emergence
of a four-tier settlement hierarchy; 2) emergence of increasing centralization; 3) the construction
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of palace and estates for the ruler; 4) the development of standardized and specialized religious
and administrative architecture; and 5) evidence of lasting territorial control. Specifically
relating to the development of standardized and specialized religious and administrative
architecture, Moore suggests that it exhibit permanence, centrality, ubiquity, scale, and visibility.
All of these things would demarcate a structure as an important religious symbol, being
permanent and unmoving, as well as large, centrally located, and visible on the landscape to
serve as a constant reminder to all who see it.
This is by no means an exhaustive review of theoretical literature about the presence of
religion in the archaeological record, but it is meant to examine several frameworks under which
ritual and ideology can be discussed, and provide a platform in moving forward to examining
religion in the archaeological record of the Inka empire.
INKA EXPANSION
The Inka Empire experienced a meteoric expansion during its brief existence,
encompassing a geographic region from Ecuador to northern Chile and northwestern Argentina.
By all accounts, the Inka empire was one of a number of small, regionally important polity in the
Cuzco basin during the Late Intermediate Period after Wari collapse. Chronicles refer to the
earliest manifestations of the Inka polity as "controlling small territories, with little or no
political control over neighboring groups" (Covey 2006:112). Indeed, the area around Cuzco
"witnessed a proliferation of small polities, which established themselves in locations that
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provided defense, as well as access to a wide range of agropastoral resources" (Covey 2006:106).
The defensive nature of settlements in these polities during this time period reflects a political
balkanization that occurred, with many competing groups struggling to maintain control over
adequate and sufficient resources. As population grew in the basin, increased economic
pressures strained the Inka. Lack of sufficient food production and resources caused the Inka to
begin militarily raiding their neighbors in the Cuzco basin. With the reign of the fourth Inka
ruler, Mayta Capac, the Inkas began consolidating political control over the Cuzco basin, taking
control of resources and lands of neighboring groups and turning them into subordinates with
appointed Inka leaders, usually the ruler's sons (Covey 2006:112).
This increased militarization and the fact that the Inka were now in control of populations
that were not ethnically Inka needed to be justified. As a result, there were several changes in the
ideology and religious power of the state. First, chronicles describe an increased importance
placed on the ancestor cult. Additionally, there was the promotion of sun worship as the state
religion (Covey 2006:118). With this promotion came the additional caveat that the Inka ruler
was the descendant of the sun, and that any ruler who did not accept this divine lineage and
nature of the Inka's power was insulting the sun itself. This provided a means by which the
empire could both justify its control over subject populations that were not ethnically Inka as
well as justify additional imperial expansion and conquest of other polities.
The establishment of the Inka ruler as a descendant of the sun itself had important
implications that lend themselves well to the establishment of ideologies useful in empire
building. In an effort to create this lineage, many stories were created about early Inka rulers
interacting directly with the sun, moon, and other deities. These stories created an artificial
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antiquity for the empire, such that the Spanish chroniclers and modern scholars speak of the
earliest Inka rulers in uncertain terms. The Inka empire had a temporal span of only about a
century, but the creation of these myths and legends and this antiquity gave it much more of a
permanence. This artificial antiquity would have served to both justify and reinforce the Inka's
position as superior and in control over other ethnic groups, as well as provide a useful
propaganda tool amongst subjugated groups to exhibit proof of the inevitability of Inka imperial
control.
At this point, when the Inka empire adapt their ideology to justify its militaristic
conquests, expansion was no longer done out of necessity for resources. New motivations drove
expansion, including access to other resources not available in the Cuzco basin (such as coastal
resources like shell, fish, and foods only capable of being grown in lowland coastal valleys) as
well as a desire to generate an increased surplus and wealth. As the Inka expanded into different
geographic regions, they encountered different polities, some of which adapted very easily to
imperial hegemony. Others, however, were more resistant. In many cases, especially on the
central coast of Peru, the Inka encountered small, state-level polities that were much more
resistant than the stratified non-state-level societies of the central highlands. These small states
were resistant to imperial control. As a result, the Inka would modify their ideological strategies
to coexist beside extant local ones (Covey 2006), as opposed to forcing the imperial cult of sun
worship onto these populations.
Cobo (1990 [1653]) describes a practice of the Inka where, once a polity was conquered,
the idols or most important idol of that region would be removed from its local context and taken
to Cuzco. In the event that any person in that polity should transgress, whether it be against the
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deity or against the empire, he or she would have to come to Cuzco to ask forgiveness at the idol.
This practice not only solidified Cuzco's position as the capital and center of power of the
empire, but it signified the control that the Inka had over its subject polities. By capturing their
religious figures, it demonstrated that these local beliefs were secondary to the state cult, and that
the populations adhering to them were in turn subservient to those following the state cult. The
veracity of this practice cannot be confirmed or disproven, but nonetheless it provides an
example of the image of the Inka empire portrayed to the chroniclers, that they were masterful
manipulators who managed to maintain control over their subjects through a number of different
ways.
It should be noted that Conrad and Demarest (1984) propose a somewhat different view
for the motivations behind Inka imperial expansion. As opposed to resource pressure, they argue
that expansion was fueled by the traditional institution of split inheritance. When a ruler died,
his title would be transferred to his successor, but his wealth and material possessions were not.
As a result, each new ruler "would find conquests desirable as means of accumulating his own
wealth" (Conrad and Demarest 1984:94). This necessity to accumulate one's own wealth and
greatness would have escalated exponentially to the point where the empire became as large as it
was.
This alternative view differs most importantly in that the rulers themselves are the ones
being manipulated by ideological constraints. This is different from the previous scenario, in
which they are the agents who are performing the manipulation and control of ideology over
subjugated populations. In Conrad and Demarest's scenario, the rulers do not have to exclusively
be constrained. They could very well have been both manipulated by these constraints as well as
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manipulating themselves in the control of other groups. There is also the possibility that they
could have used the constraint of split inheritance as a justification of increased militaristic
expansion of the empire as well.
Regardless of the degree of application, ideological control appears to have been
paramount to imperial strategies in subjugation of non-Inka polities and populations. It served
an important role in both the justification of imperial expansions and subjugation of polities, and
in the pacification and acceptance of the imperial hegemony amongst conquered and subjugated
populations.
PACHACAMAC
One particularly interesting case study is the site of Pachacamac. Pachacamac was a
ritual and pilgrimage center located on the central coast of Peru. It is noted as having pan-
regional importance that extended as far back as the Early Intermediate Period (900 BC - AD
200) (Shimada 1991). While having a large residential component, it was also one of the most
important pilgrimage sites in Andean South America, and was the location of one of the most
consulted oracles. The site was highlighted by the prominent Temple of Pachacamac.
In general, the Inka conquest of the coast was much different than that of the highlands.
As the coast provided more resistance to the idea of imperial Inka conquest, for a long period of
time there was only loose association between coastal polities and the Inka empire for mutually
beneficial trade. Once the empire eventually expanded to include coastal polities, it adapted
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complementary political and ideological systems without providing much change to established
local systems (Covey 2006, Marcone 2010, Stanish 2001).
Pachacamac seems to be an exception to this rule, experiencing profound changes in the
design of the site, including the construction of new buildings and the repurposing of others
(Eeckhout 2004). The Inka occupation at the site is most dense between the Tauri Chumpi
Palace and the Temple of the Sun, as they constructed a number of new structures and heavily
modified old ones, including the Convent of the Mamacona, the Pilgrims' Plaza, the Tauri
Chumpi Palace, and the Temple of the Sun itself (Shimada 1991).
The Temple of the Sun was built adjacent to the pre-Inka Temple of Pachacamac. Cobo
writes that the Temple of the Sun at Pachacamac was second only to the Sun Temple in Cuzco
(1990 [1653]) He also notes that during Inka control at Pachacamac, the Temple of the Sun was
the site of feasts and many sacrifices, as well as the home to a resident population of priests and
attendants.
The Inka decision to build the Temple of the Sun represents a deliberate, political
demonstration of control over Pachacamac. Durkheim (1965 [1912]) postulates that cults and
rites are integral to the establishment and maintenance of society and, therefore, to the
legitimization of dominance and an established hierarchy. In Durkheim's model, religion is a
hegemonic vehicle used to reinforce societal status and authority. With this in mind, Inka
occupation of an important ritual site like Pachacamac and the construction of new Inka facilities
in the presence of existing ritual structures sent a powerful message of cultural dominance or
legitimate succession (Bauer and Stanish 2001).
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Inka imperial strategies are also expressed in material culture, and architecture and
artifacts following the styles of Cuzco can be seen in many subjugated areas. Cuzco styles are
both distinctive and standardized, and many of these objects (including fine clothing and serving
vessels used at state-sponsored feasts) would have been highly visible. By providing these
objects in imperial styles, the Inka conveyed a clear, repeated message that imperial rulers were
the providers of food, drink, and hospitality (Morris 1991). Inka style objects were
manufactured in state workshops and production enclaves located at or near provincial centers
(like Pachacamac) where local or hybrid style objects may have been made as well (Hayashida
1998, D'Altroy and Bishop 1990).
In addition to the local reproduction of imperial styles, imperial pottery may have been
imported from Cuzco. Recent research on materials excavated at the Temple of the Sun has
provided grounds for this possibility (Davenport 2012). A number of stylistically Inka ceramics
found at a midden from the Temple of the Sun were compositionally different from other
stylistically pre-Inka ceramics found in the same contexts. A majority of these different Inka
ceramics were finely decorated serving vessels such as plates and karos. This suggests that the
Inka could have been transporting these vessels long distances, possibly from Cuzco, in an effort
to produce highly visible symbols of Inka imperial authority. The presence of imperial pottery
from the capital itself would reinforce the idea that the Inka intended to provide the image of
themselves as the literal provider of food and drink for state-sponsored ceremonies.
CONCLUSION
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Religion appears to have played a very important role in the lives of prehistoric Andean
peoples. It is precisely this importance that allowed it to be of such utility to the Inka. There are
several clear markers, both archaeologically and in the ethnohistoric literature that point to the
manipulation of ideology, ritual, and religion by the Inka. It appears that religious control was
among the most important strategies used by the Inka in their pacification, subjugation, and
control of subject polities and populations. This control was manifested in different ways
depending on the nature of the subject population's structure and pre-existing beliefs, but was
always adapted to be most effective in its application.
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