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The presence of the Tawantinsuyu in the Northern Andes and the history of frontier spaces during the Late Prehispanic period, seen from archaeology and ethnohistory

Alejandro Bernal Vélez and Claudia Afanador

Description

During the past decades, the topic about the expansion of the Tawantinsuyu has been spurred by new debates. First, the importance of understanding the various mechanisms by which the Inca State incorporated new sociopolitical units or ethnic groups into its structure has been highlighted. This includes the local strategies that were used to deal with the presence of Inca agents working for the State, either adapting to them, negotiating with them, or rejecting them. In this context, considering one-way domination and control by the Inca State from its headquarters in Cuzco has been played down in favor of views constructed from different historical provincial points of view. Secondly, there’s been a turn when looking at spaces and territories, where analyses tend to be more of an ‘horogenesis’–understanding the term as the origins and development of a frontier space, rather than a perspective looking to detail when and where a rigid border was established, marking the extent of the empire at the time of the Spanish conquest in the 1530s. Following the later line of thought, it has been suggested that the presence and activities of the Inca along the borders of the Tawantinsuyu should be approached from a dynamic perspective, showing the advances and setbacks of the Inca State according to the actions taken by local groups, the consolidation of Inca enclaves, and very possibly also by particular geographic conditions. Finally, these ideas about the different mechanisms by which the Inca and the provinces related with each other and were at the core of the differences seen at the borders has generated varying ways of understanding the materials and documentary sources used by archaeology and historiography in the study of the frontiers of the Tawantinsuyo. Despite the importance of the Northern Andes for understanding the dynamics of the Inca frontier, the number of archaeological and ethnohistorical studies on this topic is considerably less than those available for the Southern Andes. 

Objectives

The proposal that stems from this workgroup about the archaeology and history of the Northern Andes and the tropical rainforests of Northern South America, hopes to revitalize the debate about the presence or absence of the Inca in Ecuador’s Northern Sierra and Southern Colombia. Its goal is also to understand the mechanisms by which frontier spaces were formed. Specifically: 

• Determine the state of research about the Inca in the Northern Andes (this includes the so-called Chinchasuyu, specifically the areas of Peru’s sierra and north coast, and Ecuador’s sierra, south and central coasts), and the areas that were part of the Inca’s northernmost advances at the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth. 

• Debate the idea of ‘horogenesis’ (in the sense of understanding de origins and development of a frontier space, an idea of J.P. Deler); and the historical and sociocultural construction of space through time, before the presence of the Tawantinsuyu in the Northern Andes. 

• Make progress analyzing the link between imperial agents (or imperial representatives) and the local societies where they went. This should help to better understand issues of resistance to the empire and aspects of the incorporation of those societies into the empire. 

• A critical approach to the archaeological materials, documentary sources, and ethnographic information that are used to decide whether the Incas were present or absent in the Northern Andes. • Consider the criteria used so far by archaeology and history for understanding the expansion of the Inca to the north–at least to the north of Quito.

Bibliography

danielabalanzategui
danielabalanzategui

OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
danielabalanzategui (16 de noviembre de 2021). The presence of the Tawantinsuyu in the Northern Andes and the history of frontier spaces during the Late Prehispanic period, seen from archaeology and ethnohistory. Andes Septentrionales: arqueología e historia. Recuperado 5 de junio de 2026 de https://doi.org/10.58079/sdxi


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