The Evolution of Social Institutions in the Central Andes

Abstract

The chapter traces the evolution of complex socio-political institutions in the Andes from their appearance in the north coast of Peru at the end of the 4th millennium BCE to the sprawling Inca Empire of the fifteenth century CE. For each period, the author describes the kinds of social institutions that developed among the varied societies of this vast region. The evolutionary process centers on monumental architecture requiring coordinated labor. After two millennia of complex social development, state societies emerged by coopting trade networks and barter fairs. The states focused on the control of roads and strategic colonies throughout their region. An elite style of architecture and statecraft was based on earlier, nonstate political, and economic institutions. These grew slowly and lasted for at least a half a millennium. State collapse was followed by political and social realignments, the context for the rapid growth of the Inca Empire in the fifteenth century. Unlike the first states, the Inca Empire was characterized by contiguous provinces and an imperial bureaucracy that administered dozens of distinct ethnic groups and provinces. The earlier relationships between trade, production, and distribution were coopted by the Inca into a grand imperial strategy of population concentration and the creation of industrial enclaves. The rapid rise of the Inca was followed by its relatively quick political collapse at the hands of European invaders.