... considered the lake to be the “navel of the world” and a site of tremendous spiritual and political power. The Inka themselves sought to lay claim to the symbolic prestige of the lake region. As they grew from being simply one more local ethnic federation into an expansive imperial force in the southern...

... The valley of Cochabamba was perhaps the richest agricultural region in the highland Andes before the Spanish conquest. One of the most revealing sources for understanding Inka systems of territorial control and demographic relocation comes from a legal dispute in 1556 between the caciques...

... For more than a century, Inka territory spread far beyond its home base in Cuzco, reaching north and south along the mountain chain of the Andes. As Pedro Cieza de León’s chronicle attests, the Inka combined military might with symbolic and material enticements to win over the regional Aymara...

... Andean space was profoundly transformed by the waves of colonization organized by successive Inka sovereigns. Inka state coordination involved intensive grain production and the redistribution of surpluses, new territorial administration, and the massive movement of people, known as mitmaqkuna...

...States and Conquests in the Andes For more than a century, Inka territory spread far beyond its home base in Cuzco, reaching north and south along the mountain chain of the Andes. As Pedro Cieza de León’s chronicle attests, the Inka combined military might with symbolic and material...

... and civilizational achievement of Tiwanaku society, many peoples considered the lake to be the “navel of the world” and a site of tremendous spiritual and political power. The Inka themselves sought to lay claim to the symbolic prestige of the lake region. As they grew from being simply one more local ethnic...

...,” and can be read as a myth of conquest corresponding to the political expansion of the Inka in the southern Andes in the fifteenth century. The material remains of these earlier societies are evident, as the story notes, in the pre-Inka tombs (chullpares) scattered about the altiplano. The small pockets...