17/03/2026
Serdecznie zapraszamy na kolejną prelekcję z cyklu Wrocławskich Spotkań Archeologicznych. Wykład „Regional interaction before Inka imperialism in Cusco, Peru (AD 1000-1400)” wygłosi Julia E. Earle. Spotkanie odbędzie się 25 marca 2026 r. (w środę) o godzinie 14.00 w Ośrodku Badań nad Kulturą Późnego Antyku i Wczesnego Średniowiecza Instytutu Archeologii i Etnologii PAN we Wrocławiu, ul. Więzienna 6, sala im. A. i L. Leciejewiczów – 2 piętro. Serdecznie zapraszamy!
Abstract: The Inkas built the largest Indigenous empire in the Americas. However, the mechanisms that led to state formation remain unclear. Neo-evolutionary approaches posited that factors such as warfare, population pressure, or environmental change would have triggered political centralization and territorial expansion. However, such approaches have yet to explain why an expansionist state formed in Cusco and not elsewhere in the Andean highlands during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1400).
Addressing this problem, I evaluate multi-scalar variation in construction practices and portable material culture to reconstruct the broader political landscape in which Inka state formation took place. Suspending teleological assumptions that the Inkas were always preeminent or that their regional dominance was inevitable, I appraise aspects of social organization and geopolitics among autochthonous groups settled within a 50-km radius of the Cusco Basin.
Integrating regional archaeological data with ethnohistory and community-based research, I suggest that groups throughout the broader Cusco region competed for prestige and social capital by attracting out-group members to participate in events of commensal hospitality. Thus, I posit a new model wherein the pursuit of novelty and complexity within a competitive social arena produced the conditions for political centralization under the Inkas.
Bio: Julia E. Earle is a Visiting Researcher at the University of Warsaw (Centre of Andean Studies). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and BA and MA from the University of Toronto. Since 2017, she has directed collaborative and community-engaged research projects in the southern Peruvian highlands with funding from the National Science Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the National Geographic Society, among other private foundations. Her current research program addresses this topic by analyzing multi-scalar ceramic variability to track interactions between culturally diverse collectives in the Cusco region (Peru) prior to and during the Inka Empire's expansion.
