The spatial development of Chachapoya communities under inka and spanish colonial domination

Abstract

The Chachapoya have come to be seen as a peripheral cultural entity in relation to the broader pre-Columbian Andes. While the material culture associated with the Chachapoya developed prior to AD 1000, it is unclear how uniform this process was on a regional level. In the pre-Columbian Andes, the development of centralized and partitioned monumental architecture has been commonly used as evidence for social and political transformations. Furthermore, the incursions of the Inka and Spanish conquests likely imposed radical changes in the labor, economic, and religious practices of conquered ethnic groups, yet little work has addressed how social practices changed under different regimes. This paper utilizes a scalar perspective to understand the implication of these changes for the Chachapoya region. To better understand the development of Chachapoya communities, this paper addresses the significance of centrality for one such community, Purun Llacta de Soloco, and the role that the construction of its architecture and changes to the surrounding settlement rendered in its social and political development.