Incas: New Perspectives

by Mcewan,Gordon F.

• ISBN13: 9780393333015
• ISBN10: 0393333019
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

They were isolated in a forbidding landscape and lacked many of the supposed necessities for building a civilization, including the advantages of a written language, the wheel, iron, draft animals, and trading markets. Yet despite these apparent disadvantages, the Incas forged one of the greatest and most influential imperial states that the world has ever known. Before the empire's destruction at the hands of Pizarro and his conquistadors, the Incas demonstrated an astonishing mastery of a wide range of fields, from engineering and mathematics to agriculture, astronomy, and medicine.

Author Biography

Gordon F. McEwan is professor of anthropology at Wagner College on Staten Island, author of Pikillacta: The Wari Empire in Cuzco, and coauthor of Knowing the Inca Past

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Preface	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Introduction
Introduction	p. 3
Overview	p. 3
Sources of Information about the Incas	p. 6
Inca Civilization
Location of the Inca Civilization and Environmental Setting	p. 19
Location	p. 19
The Andean Environment	p. 19
Andean Culture and Its Environment	p. 24
Historical and Chronological Setting	p. 28
European Discovery of the Incas	p. 28
Andean History before the Incas	p. 33
Development of Andean Cultural Chronology	p. 48
Origins, Growth, and Decline of Inca Civilization	p. 56
What the Incas Told the Spanish about Their Origins	p. 57
What Scholars Have Learned about Inca Origins	p. 62
The Inca Dynasty	p. 68
Inca Rulers under Spanish Control	p. 79
The Economic Structure of the Inca State	p. 83
Subsistence Patterns	p. 83
The Inca Imperial Economy	p. 87
Social Organization and Social Structure	p. 93
Estimating the Population of the Inca Empire	p. 93
The Social Organization of Inca Civilization	p. 96
The System of Social Classes	p. 97
Life under Inca Rule	p. 102
Inca Towns and Cities	p. 108
The Political Structure of the Inca State	p. 112
Inca Government	p. 112
Inca Decimal Administration	p. 114
Administrative Infrastructure	p. 115
The Inca Army	p. 126
Social Engineering and the Disposition of Conquered Territories	p. 131
Political Relations between the Incas and Their Subjects	p. 133
Internal Politics among the Incas	p. 134
Religion and Ideology	p. 137
Andean Cosmology	p. 137
Inca State Ideology	p. 138
Local-Level Ideology	p. 139
Inca State Religion	p. 142
Principal Rituals and Ceremonies of the State Religion	p. 151
Principal Temples of the State Religion	p. 155
Huacas: The Animistic Folk Religion	p. 158
Material Culture	p. 161
Pottery	p. 161
Wooden Objects	p. 164
Metal	p. 164
Cloth	p. 167
Stone	p. 169
Shell and Bone	p. 171
Architecture	p. 171
Intellectual Accomplishments	p. 179
Fine Arts	p. 179
System of Measures	p. 179
Language and Literacy	p. 180
Inca Literacy, Mathematics, and Methods of Recording	p. 182
Counting and Calculating Devices	p. 185
Astronomical Knowledge	p. 185
Current Assessments
Major Controversies and Future Directions in Inca Studies	p. 195
Historicists vs. Structuralists: The Great Inca Debate	p. 195
Issues in Inca Archaeology	p. 197
Chronology	p. 203
Glossary	p. 207
Resources for Further Study	p. 225
Index	p. 259
About the Author	p. 269
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.