The millenary history of Andean polities has been strongly influenced by geographical diversity because the cordillera is the longest mountain range in the world, and second only to the Himalayas in height. Tropical forest adaptations exist in the north where the range is low and well watered. To the south, the cordillera becomes significantly higher and drier, supporting two very different ways of making a living. Along the Pacific desert coast, people rely on irrigation agriculture and fishing, while at elevations above 2,000 meters an agropastoral way of life prevails. These distinctive adaptations supported the development of very different types of political systems. The focus of this fine volume is all but exclusively on the history of high-altitude peoples and polities.
Originally published in French in 1978 as Anthropologie historique des sociétés andines, 17 essays by scholars from the Andes, Europe, and the United States present views of highland societies from the perspectives of archeology, anthropology, geography, and history. Following an introduction by editors John V. Murra and Nathan Wachtel, the articles are grouped into five sections. In part one, “Ecology and Society,” Olivier Dollfus reviews the environmental mosaic of the cordillera; Lautaro Núñez discusses the 8,000-year occupation of the Tarapacá drainage of northern Chile; and Ana María Lorandi assesses the widespread “horizons” of archeological interaction. The Inca are the topic of part two, “The Ethnic Group and the State.” Here, Murra focuses on armies, war, and rebellions; Craig Morris on state storage and redistribution; Jean Berthelot on mines and precious metals; and Frank Salomon on the imperial frontiers in Ecuador. In “Systems of Classification” (part three), the Inca kinship system is reviewed by Floyd G. Lounsbury; the system for naming native camelids is presented by Jorge A. Flores Ochoa; and the seminology of textiles is elucidated by Verónica Cereceda. Part four, “Symbolic Representations and Practices,” includes articles by R. Tom Zuidema on Inca dynastic concerns with irrigation and Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne on Aymara concepts of space, while Tristan Platt and Olivia Harris each examine transformational shifts from dualism to tripartition among two neighboring ethnic groups in Bolivia. “From Ethnic Polities to Communities” (part five) explores the European-induced reduction of what was once a multiethnic world of large-scale societies into the contemporary one of small, indigenous groups. Here, Nathan Wachtel examines the Uru of Lake Titicaca; Thierry Saignes looks at ethnic groups in valleys east of the lake; and Antoinette Molinié-Fioravanti compares and contrasts three different communities.
All the articles are quite innovative. They demonstrate many strong continuities between the past and present condition of indigenous highland populations, and show the fruitful possibilities of close collaboration between history and anthropology in enriching our understanding of prehistoric, colonial, and contemporary Andean peoples and polities.
