An archaeological investigation at the western margin of the Cordillera de la Sal Formation in Catarpe (San Pedro de Atacama, northern Chile), revealed a series of pyrometallurgical furnaces from the Late period (AD 1400–1536). The furnaces, found at the Catarpe Túnel archaeological site, were used to reduce atacamite, clinoatacamite, brochantite, chrysocolla, and azurite to obtain unalloyed copper prills. Exceptional for the Atacama oasis and salt flats, Catarpe Túnel represents the only major archaeometallurgical site recorded in the area. Archaeometric analysis has determined the type of ore smelted, the composition of the metallic copper produced, and the characteristics of the fuel used by the operations. Although these operations are typical of the local metallurgical tradition, their proximity to a documented section of the Qhapaq Ñan and the Inka administrative center of Catarpe Este led us to wonder about the possible Tawantinsuyu influence in the region.

In this study, we analyze extensive segmented and standardized agricultural fields in the marginally productive terrain of the Pampa de Guereque in the Jequetepeque Valley on the north coast of Peru. Although portions of the associated canal system were constructed continuously from late Formative to Chimú times, the segmented fields date to the late Chimú–Inka period and were only partially finished, apparently never fully used, and ultimately abandoned. We provide description of field plots and irrigation canals and discuss the implications of state-level construction and labor management of the fields, as well as the probable reasons for their abandonment.

Dietary studies can offer insight into the effects of imperial rule on colonised populations. Inka expansion was associated with change in agricultural production and diet, including greater emphasis on maize. This article presents stable isotope analyses of ten individuals from two locations in Antofagasta de la Sierra, Argentina. AMS dating assigns one site to the start of the Inka period and one to the end. Despite diachronic changes in material culture, isotope analyses indicate that maize remained relatively unimportant in local diet. Given the symbolic value of maize in the Inka world, this lack of dietary change suggests limited imperial influence over local agricultural production and diet.

As insignia of power and prestige, Inka unku (tapestry tunics) communicated the strength and extent of Inka sociopolitical hegemony in the Andes. Of the 36 known full-size examples in museum collections, only one, found in Argentina, comes from outside Peru. This article investigates another recently excavated unku found out of context on Chile's northernmost coast. To confirm its authenticity, we compiled a database showing the technical and stylistic attributes of previous finds for comparison. We conclude that this artifact is indeed a new type of unku and that the discovery affects our understanding of the complex relationship between the people of this province and the Inka state.

Llamas were the preferred sacrificial animals of the Inka Empire, their ritual value second only to that of human beings. Recent archaeological excavations at the Inka settlement of Tambo Viejo in the Acari Valley on the Peruvian south coast have revealed a number of ritually sacrificed llamas in a unique context. This new evidence demonstrates that the establishment of Tambo Viejo as a provincial Inka centre involved the performance of ritual practices that included the dedicatory sacrifice of domesticated animals. These rituals materialised Inka imperial ideology and ultimately enabled the legitimisation of Inka presence in a conquered location.

We recently conducted excavations at the Inka administrative center of Tambo Viejo in the Acari Valley of the Peruvian south coast. Our excavation of two centrally located structures demonstrates that, despite the apparent brief occupation of the site, there was substantial rebuilding as older structures were demolished and replaced by new ones. The final layout of Tambo Viejo had been preceded by continuous modifications. Furthermore, the establishment of Tambo Viejo was accompanied by ritual activities comprising the burial of sacrificial offerings such as plants and animals.

The site of Tipon, Peru, located about 30 km east of Cuzco, provides an example of Inka knowledge of hydraulic engineering and the civil engineering practices used in the design and operation of the complex water system. The inhabitants of Tipon used river- and spring-sourced surface and subterranean channels to convey, distribute, and drain water to and from multiple agricultural platforms, reservoirs, and urban ceremonial centers. Intricate intersecting surface and subterranean channel systems that combined and regulated water flows from different sources controlled the water to and drainage from 13 terraced agricultural platforms. This design served to maintain different ground moisture levels to sustain specialty crops. Within the site are fountains and multiple water display features requiring sophisticated hydraulic engineering necessary for aesthetic displays. To understand the technology used by the Inka to design the water systems at Tipon, I used computational fluid dynamics methodology and modern hydraulic engineering theory. I made computer models of key elements of the Principal Fountain and the Main Aqueduct to reproduce water flow patterns in these features as intended by Inka engineers’ designs and calculations. The Inka hydraulic technology used complex engineering principles similar to those in modern civil engineering practice centuries ahead of their formal discovery in Western hydraulic science.

In this article, we present research on Inka actions in the face of resistance by indigenous peoples on the northern frontier. We link fieldwork at the Pambamarca complex in northern Ecuador with historic documents to provide important context for further examining imperial processes. With its three site types, Pambamarca offers an opportunity to examine the range of tendencies that groups undergo during imperial moments. Its sites show evidence of both direct displays and the materialization of forceful control or takeover, as well as the more passive, nonsettler, decentralized hegemonic narratives also commonly associated with empire. Here we present detailed data for Inka military installations used to confront a prolonged resistance by the País Caranqui, a decentralized confederation of Caranqui-Cayambe peoples. Evidence from surveys and excavations— including architectural planning, distribution of artifacts, and military encounters—at two large sites in the complex, Quitoloma and Campana Pucara, helps expand our current understandings of the Inka invasion in northern Ecuador while broadening our perspective on the imperial narrative in South America.

Several khipus—Inka knotted-string recording devices—were recently excavated at a storage facility at the Peruvian south coast site of Inkawasi, found buried under agricultural produce (i.e., chili peppers, peanuts, and black beans). These khipus contain a formulaic arrangement of numerical values not encountered on khipus from elsewhere in Tawantinsuyu (the Inka Empire). The formula includes first, a large number, hypothesized to record the sum total of produce included in a deposit, followed by a “fixed number,” and then one or more additional numbers. The fixed number plus the additional number(s) sum to the original large number. It is hypothesized that the fixed number represents an amount deducted from the deposit to support storage facility personnel. As such, it represented a tax assessed on deposits, the first evidence we have for a system of taxation on goods in the Inka Empire. It is proposed that the size and complexity of the storage facility at Inkawasi prompted the “invention” of a kind of financing instrument—taxation—not known previously from Inka administration. We also consider, but provisionally set aside, the alternative hypothesis that the fixed values recorded on the Inkawasi khipus could have represented amounts of seeds set aside from deposits for the next year's planting.

Recording devices formed of knotted cords, known as khipus, are a well-known feature of imperial administration among the Inka of Andean South America. The origins and antecedents of this recording system are, however, much less clearly documented. Important insights into that ancestry are offered by a group of eight khipus dating from the later part of the Middle Horizon period (AD 600–1000), probably used by the pre-Inka Wari culture of the central Andes. This article reports the AMS dating of four of these early khipus. A feature of the Middle Horizon khipus is the clustering of knots in groups of five, suggesting that they were produced by a people with a base five number system. Later, Inka khipus were organised instead around a decimal place-value system. Hence the Inka appear to have encountered the base five khipus among Wari descendant communities late in the Middle Horizon or early in the Late Intermediate period (AD 1000–1450), subsequently adapting them to a decimal system.

In this detailed study of fifteenth-century settlements in Argentina, the authors show how the Inka did not just use force, production and ritual to subdue the indigenous population. The conquerors' strategy included the re-ordering of settlement plans, routeways and landscape, class separation and even the imposition of a rigorous discipline on the indigenous vision, controlling what could be seen looking out or looking in. The material readings made in these South American examples have much to offer to archaeologists working in colonial periods elsewhere.