The Andean World
The rise of civilization in South America paralleled many of the
processes in Mesoamerica, but it was also conditioned by the specific
geographical features of that continent. The Andean world presented to men and
women a peculiar geography of complex microregions with extreme changes in
altitude and temperature. The narrow and arid strip on the western coast, cut
by a few rivers that flow to the Pacific, gives way quickly to the high Andes
where some peaks rise to over 15,000 feet. Between the two major chains of the
Andes lie high valleys and steppes, or puna, that form the highlands, or
altiplano. On these cool uplands (usually above 10,000 feet) the land is
relatively level and there is adequate water. Here potatoes and maize could be
grown and the puna provided good grazing for llamas and alpacas, the "sheep of
the Andes." Andean populations concentrated here or down on the arid coast in
the river valleys that made irrigation possible. On the eastern slopes of the
Andes a number of large rivers run down into the tropical rain forest
concentrated at the basins of the Amazon and La Plata rivers. This is the
humid montana, where tropical fruits and coca leaf can be obtained.
This rugged topography imposed limitations and created opportunities for
civilization to develop. The arid coastal valleys demanded irrigation, and
this spurred population growth and social complexity. Irrigation projects were
enormous, involving miles of canals and ditches and requiring constant
maintenance and construction. Did the need for irrigation create the state, or
did irrigation result from the formation of centralized authority? Scholars
disagree, but it is clear that once formed, a major function of the coastal
states was to irrigate. In the highlands, irrigation and terracing increased
the food supply in regions where the amount of arable land was limited.
Populations concentrated in the fertile valleys but were separated from each
other by steep mountains. Trade and communication were difficult. It took
large and well-organized projects to build roads, bridges, and agricultural
terraces. The reasons for state building were good. The warfare, military
images, and trophy heads seen in much ancient Peruvian art represent a world
of limited resources and competition.
Recall that, in the Andean world, sharp vertical changes created
microclimates within relatively short distances. Peoples and even individual
communities or families strove to control a number of ecological zones where
different kinds of crops could be raised. A community might reside in the
altiplano growing potatoes and quinoa, an Andean grain, but could also have
fields in lower valleys to grow maize, pastures miles away at a higher
elevation for their llamas, and even an outer colony in the montana to provide
cotton, coca, and other tropical products. In fact, access to a variety of
these ecological zones by colonization, occupation, conquest, or trade seems
to have been a constant feature in Andean life that determined pre-Columbian
patterns of settlement and influenced the historical development of the Andean
world.
Early Developments And The Rise Of Chavin
Much of early Andean history fits a pattern of alternation between
periods of decentralization, in which various local or regional centers
developed distinctive cultures, and periods when one of these centers seems to
have spread its control over very large areas, establishing a cultural horizon
under centralized authority. Between 3000 and 2000 B.C. permanent agricultural
villages were established in both the Andean highlands and on the arid Pacific
coast. Maize was introduced from Mesoamerica and was grown along with
indigenous crops such as the potato. By about 2700 B.C., pottery was produced,
first on the north coast in present-day Ecuador and then in the highlands of
central Peru. This early pottery, called Valdivia ware, indicates advanced
techniques of production. It is remarkably similar to Japanese Jomon-period
ceramics, and this has led some scholars to hypothesize a transpacific contact
by Japanese fishermen. Whatever the origins of pottery in the region, the
presence of sedentary agriculture, ceramics, weaving, and permanent villages
marked a level of productivity that was soon followed by evidence of political
organization. Early sites, such as El Paraiso on the Peruvian coast, contain
monumental buildings of great size, but we know little of the societies that
built them.
Between 1800 and 1200 B.C. ceremonial centers with large stone buildings
were constructed both in the highlands and on the coast. Pottery was now
widely distributed; the domestication of the llama had taken place; and
agriculture had become more complex, with evidence of simple irrigation at
some places. The most important of these centers was Chavin de Huantar
(850-250 B.C.) in the Peruvian highlands. Chavin contained a number of large
temple platforms and adobe and stone constructions. Its craftsmen worked in
ceramics, textiles, and gold. Chavin culture was characterized by artistic
motifs that were widely diffused through much of the Andean region and seem to
represent a cult or a system of religious beliefs. Jaguars, snakes, birds of
prey, and humans with feline characteristics were used as decorations, often
along with scenes of war and violence.
The artistic style was so widely diffused that archeologists refer to
this epoch as a horizon, a period when there seems to have been a broad
central authority that integrated a widely dispersed region. In truth, we do
not know if the religion of Chavin was spread by conquest, trade, or
missionary activity, nor do we know its origins. It does have some remarkable
stylistic similarities with Olmec art in Mesoamerica; some archeologists have
pointed out certain tropical features in both and have suggested the Amazonian
lowlands as a possible point of origin for both traditions.
The evidence of warfare in early Peruvian agricultural societies may
indicate a general process. With the development of intensive agriculture and
a limited amount of arable land, the organization of irrigation and the
creation of political authority and eventually states that could mobilize to
protect or expand available land, was a vital necessity.
Regional Cultures And A New Horizon
By 300 B.C. Chavin was in decline, and whatever unity the widely spread
Chavin style indicated was lost. The Andean world was now characterized by
regional centers, each with its own cultural and artistic traditions. This was
a period without political unity, but it produced some of the Andean world's
finest art. Irrigated agriculture producing a wide variety of crops, the
domestication of llamas and related animals, dense populations, and
hierarchical societies could be found in a number of places. Some societies,
such as Nazca on the south coast and Moche to the north, produced remarkable
pottery and weaving.
Nazca weaving reached a high point for the Americas. Discovery in the
1920s of a group of richly dressed mummies at Paracas near Nazca revealed the
artistic accomplishments of these ancient weavers. Over 100 colors were used
and many techniques of weaving and cloth types were produced; designs were
often abstract. The plain near Nazca is also the scene of great figures of
various animals, which cover many hundreds of feet and can only be seen from
the air. There are also great straight lines or paths that cut across the
plain and seem to be oriented toward distant mountains or celestial points.
Why these lines and designs were drawn is unknown.
The Mochica state (A.D., 200-700), in the Moche valley and on the coast
to the north of Chavin, mobilized workers to construct great clay-brick
temples, residences, and platforms. Artisans produced gold and silver jewelry
and copper tools. The potters' art reached a high point; scenes on Mochica
ceramics depict rulers receiving tribute and executing prisoners. Nobles,
priests, farmers, soldiers, and slaves are also portrayed in remarkably
lifelike ways; many vessels are quite clearly portraits of individual members
of the elite. The Mochica also produced a great number of extremely explicit
pottery vessels showing a variety of sexual activities. These scenes are
almost always in a domestic setting and indicate descriptions of everyday life
rather than ritual unions.
Moche expanded its control by conquest. Mochica art contains many
representations of war, prisoners, and taking heads as trophies. There is also
archeological evidence of hilltop forts and military posts. Politically, Moche
and the other regional states seem to have been military states or chiefdoms,
supported by extensive irrigated agriculture and often at war.
Some idea of life in Moche society has been spectacularly revealed with
the discovery in 1988 of the tomb of a warrior-priest. Buried with retainers,
servants, and his dog, this nobleman was covered with gold, silver, and copper
ornaments, fine cloth, and jewelry. The scenes depicted on these objects and
in the pottery buried with him include scenes of captive prisoners, ritual
sacrifice, and warfare.
This pattern of regional development continued until about A.D. 300 when
two large centers, Tihuanaco on the shores of Lake Titicaca and Huari, farther
to the north in southern Peru, began to emerge as large states. How much
centralized political control they exerted is unclear, but as in the earlier
case of Chavin, the religious symbols and artistic style associated with these
centers became widely diffused in the Andean world, creating perhaps a second
or Intermediate Horizon (c. A.D. 300-900) roughly contemporary with the
classic Maya and Teotihuacan in Mesoamerica.
Tihuanaco was an urban ceremonial center with a population of perhaps
40,000, supported by extensive irrigated agriculture. Recent archeological
work has revealed an extensive system of raised fields, irrigated by canals,
that could produce high yields. Tihuanaco's inhabitants probably spoke Aymara,
the language of the southern Andes that is spoken today in Bolivia. The art
style of Tihuanaco and representations of its gods, especially the Staff God,
spread all over the southern Andean zone.
In typical Andean fashion, Tihuanaco extended its political control
through colonies as far away as Chile and the eastern Andean slopes in order
to assure access to fish, coca, and tropical plants - the products of
different ecological zones. Huari may have begun as a colony of Tihuanaco, but
it eventually exercised wide influence over much of the North Andean zone.
While the period of its control was relatively short, the urban area of Huari
eventually covered over six square miles and its influence was spread by the
construction of a system of roads.
The Intermediate Horizon, represented by Tihuanaco and Huari, came to an
end in the 9th century A.D., about the same time as the end of the classic
period in Mesoamerica. Whether these two processes were connected remains
unknown. With the decline of these expansive cultures in Peru another period
of regional development followed as different peoples, especially those along
the coast, sought to establish control over their neighbors. The Chimu state
on the north coast, based on its magnificent capital city of Chau, eventually
controlled over 600 miles of the coastal zone.
The Chimu state, founded about A.D. 800, was still expanding when it fell
to the Incas in 1465. In this period other small states had formed. From Lake
Titicaca westward to the Pacific coast, the Lupacqa created a kingdom. On the
eastern margins of the lake and into the rich valleys on the eastern slope of
the Andes other small chiefdoms formed. Meanwhile, in the highlands various
ethnic groups were struggling for control of their neighbors. One of these, a
group of Quechua-speaking clans, or ayllus, took control of the highlands
around Cuzco and began to expand, especially after A.D. 1400. These were the
Incas, who were in the midst of creating a new horizon of centralized control
and considerable cultural influence over the various ethnic and linguistic
groups of the Andean world from Ecuador to Chile, when the Europeans arrived
in 1532.
Andean Lifeways
Although it is difficult to reconstruct much of the social and political
organization of early Andean societies on the basis of archeological evidence,
by using later observations from Inca times along with archeological materials
we can identify some characteristic features. We have already spoken of
verticality, or the control of a number of economic niches at different
altitudes, as a principle of Andean life. This control and related
self-sufficiency was sometimes the objective of states, but it was also the
goal of families and communities. Kin groups were another constant of the
Andean world.
Andean peoples were divided into ethnic groups and spoke a number of
languages, although Aymara came to predominate in the Bolivian highlands and
the Incas later spread Quechua from the central Andes to the coast and north
to Ecuador. Despite ethnic and linguistic differences, communities were
generally composed of households, which together recognized some form of
kinship. These kinship units, or ayllus, traced descent from some common,
sometimes mythical ancestor and they referred to other members of the ayllu as
brother and sister. People usually married within their ayllu. The ayllu
assigned each household land and access to herds and water to each household.
But rights and access were not equal for every household or family within an
ayllu. Ayllus were often divided into halves, which might have different
functions or roles. This was a form of organization the peoples of the
highland civilizations shared with many tribes of the Amazonian forests.
There were also community leaders and ayllu chiefs, or curacas, with
privileges of dress and access to resources. Groups of ayllus sharing a
similar dialect, customs and distinctive dress were bound together into ethnic
groups, and sometimes a number of these were forged into a state. The ties of
kinship were used to mobilize the community for cooperative labor and war. The
ayllu was a basic organization, and kinship provided an understanding of the
cooperation and conflict from the village to the empire. Some authors have
suggested that, even in the large states, conflicts were more often between
ayllus or groups of ayllus than between secondary social classes.
The principle of reciprocity that lay beneath the cooperative
organization of he ayllu infused much Andean social life. Reciprocal
obligations existed at many levels - within the family between men and women,
between households within the ayllu, and between the curacas who were expected
to represent the interests of the ayllus. Eventually, in theory at least,
reciprocity also existed between communities and a large state such as Huari,
which in return for labor and tribute was expected to provide access to goods
or to mobilize large projects, such as irrigation or terracing, that would
benefit the community. Reciprocity also infused religious belief. Andean
peoples lived in a world where sacred spirits and powers, or huacas, were
apparent in caves, mountains, rocks, rivers, and other natural phenomena.
Worship of the huacas and of the mummies of ancestors (which were also
considered holy and part of Andean religious life), at least from the Nazca
period, was a matter of reciprocal exchange as well.
Author: Michael Adas
Date: 1992