Chiquitoy Viejo: An Inca Administrative Center in the Chicama Valley, Peru

Geoffrey W. Conrad

Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Spring, 1977), pp. 1-18.

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http://www.jstor.orgFri Dec 14 23:02:20 2007ChiquitoyViejo: An Inca Administrative Center in the Chicama Valley, Peru

Geoffrey W. Conrad

Harvard University

Until recently most knowledge of Inca government was derived solely from Colonial Spanish chronicles, which contain only generalized, idealized accounts. Lately, however, investigations at several sites have begun to provide data that will ultimately permit a more detailed picture of the complexity and variability of Inca provincial administration.One provincial regionfor which some archaeological data are now available isthe North Coast of Peru, once the seat of the Incas' most powerful rival, the Kingdom ofChimor. Excavations at Chiquitoy Viejo in the Chicama Valley have identified the site as an Inca administrative center established for the supervision of commerce along the empire's coastal highway. More specifically, it is argued that one of Chiquitoy Viejo's principal functions was the inspection ofshipmentsof high-status goods being sent from the Chimu heartland to the Inca capital at Cuzco. This function made the site a strong and direct symbol of the Inca subjuga tion ofChimor. Furthermore, the existence of Chiquitoy Viejo shows that the prevailing interpretation of the Inca government of the North Coast, which postulates minimal interference with native Chimu administrative patterns, mustbe modified. I

IntroductionDespite an existence spanning less than a century, the Inca Empire became the largest political unit ever formed in the native Americas. Around 1438 A.C., the traditional date for the beginning of imperial expansion, Inca leaders governed only a small, tribal nation in the

I. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Dallas, Texas, May 1975. The fieldwork on which it is based was carried out in Oc tober and November, 1971, as part of the research program of the Chan Chan-Moche Valley Project (1969-1975), directed by Drs. M. Edward Moseley and Carol J. Mackey. The project was sponsored by the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society, and authorized by the Republic of Peru under Resoluciones Supremas Nos. 0203 and 857. My own participation (summer 1970, June 1971- June 1972) was made possible by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Training Grant, and the Sinclair Kennedy Fund of Harvard University. I would especially like to thank Luis Watanabe M. of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos for his assistance during the excavations at Chiquitoy Viejo; Japhet Rosell, Carlos Felipe, Miguel Alvarez, and German Ocas for drafting the iIlustrations; George Robert Lewis and S. Whitney Powell for preparing the final figures; and Drs. Moseley, Richard W. Keatinge, and Craig Morris for their aid and advice dur ing the preparation of this paper.

Cuzco area of the South Peruvian Highlands. By 1532A.C., when their empire fell to its Spanish conquerors, the Incas dominated the Andean highlands and coast from northern Ecuador to NW Argentina and central Chile.2Colonial Spanish chronicles indicate that Inca expansion was accompanied by the development of a complex bureaucracy and a sophisticated system of provincial administration. However, modern authorities on An dean culture history agree that the Inca provincial ad ministrative system described in those chronicles represents an ideal. At the time of the Conquest of Peru the system as described by the Spanish characterized the area around the imperial capital at Cuzco, but it was still incompletely established elsewhere.' In fact, provincial administrative patterns displayed regional variations

2. John H. Rowe, "Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Con quest," Handbook of South American Indians 2 (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 143 [Washington 1946]) 201-209.

3. Ibid. 183; John V. Murra, "On Inca Political Structure," Systems of Political Control and Bureaucracy in Human Socieites, ed., Verne F. Ray (American Ethnological Society 1958) 36; Dorothy Menzel, "The Inca Occupation of the South Coast of Peru," SWJA 15 (1959) 25.

Journal of Field Archaeologyf Vol. 4,19773

2 Chiquitoy Viejo: An Inca Administrative Center/Conrad

that were only minimally discussed by the chroniclers.Furthermore, with several important exceptions, most ethnohistorical and archaeological studies of Inca organization have also been concerned with the Cuzco area.' As a result. for most provincial regions there are still only scattered scraps of information on the details of Inca administration.The purpose of this paper is to provide some new data on the Inca government of one conquered region, the North Coast of Peru. Those data are the results of ex cavations in 1971 at the Inca administrative center of Chiquitoy Viejo in the Chicama Valley. After present ing some brief background information, I will describe the site and then offer an interpretation of its function. Finally, I will discuss some of the site's broader im plications for the Inca administration of the North Coast (and, by extension, of other provincial regions).

Background

Inca Provincial AdministrationSince detailed accounts of what is known about Inca provincial administration are available elsewhere,' only a brief characterization will be given here.Inca provinces were divided into a series of hierar chically ordered territorial and population units, each led by a provincial functionary who was, whenever possible, a member of the hereditary local nobility.

4. Notable exceptions include Menzel, op. cit. (in note 3); Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Curacas y Sucesiones: Costa Norte (Lima 1961); John V. Murra, "An Archaeological 'Restudy' of an Andean Ethnohistoric Account," AmAnt 28 (1962) 1-4; idem, "Una Apreciacion Etnologica de la Visita," Visita Hecha a la Provincia de Chucuito ... en el Ano 1567; Garci Diaz de San Miguel (Documentos Regionales para la Ethnologia y Etnohistoria Andina, No. 1 [Lima1964]) 421-444; idem, "La Visita de los Chupacu como Fuente Etnologica," Visita de la Provincia de Leon de Hudnuco, Volume I, Inigo Ortiz de Zuniga (Documentos para la Historia y Etnologia de Hudnuco y la Selva Central [H uanuuco 1967]) 381-406; Donald E. Thompson, "An Archeological Evaluation of Ethnohistoric Evidence on Inca Culture," Anthropological Archeology in the Americas. ed., Betty J. Meggers (Washington 1968) 108-120; Craig Morris and Donald E. Thompson, "Huanuco Viejo: An Inca Administrative Center," AmAnt 35 (1970) 344-362; Craig Morris, "State Settlements in Tawantinsuyu: A Strategy of Compulsory Urbanism," Contemporary Archaeology: A Guide to Theory and Contributions, ed., Mark P. Leone (Carbondale 1972) 393-401; Patricia J. Netherly, "Los Senores Tardios en la Costa y Sierra Norte" (Paper read at the SegundoCongreso Peruano del Hombre y la Cultura Andina, Trujillo, 1974);Tom D. Dillehay, "Upstairs Looking Down: A Geographic Perspective of Inca Activity in the Chillon Valley, Peru" (Paper read at the40th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Dallas, 1975).5. See especially Rowe, op. cit. (in note 2) 257-274, and Murra, op. cit. (in note 3).

These administrators served as the immediate super visors of a set of reciprocal obligations between the state and the local community. The basic unit of provincial administration was the taxpayer, or able-bodied adult male head-of-household. Taxes levied upon those per sons were called mit'a and took the form of labor obligations to the state.

Inca Roads and Roadside SitesProvinces were connected by an extensive system of roads (many of which had pre-Inca origins). Two main highways ran the length of the empire, one along the coast and the other through the highlands. The two highways were connected at intervals by transverse roads; settlements were linked to the highways by branch roads, lesser roads, and paths. Use of the roads was restricted to persons traveling on official business, and the movement of goods along the network was un der state supervision."Most of our knowledge of Inca installations along the highways comes from the highlands, where two major types of sites are found. The first type consists of small sites known as tampu, or way-stations for the use of of ficials traveling on state business. The second is com posed of larger sites that are usually given the broad designation "administrative centers;" the best known example is Huanuco Pampa in the North-Central Highlands. Investigations at Huanuco Pampa have shown that such sites served as centers of government, religion, craft production, and storage. The large ad ministrative centers were separated by distances of four to six days' travel on foot; tampu lay between them at in tervals representing a convenient day's journey. 7

The North Coast of PeruThe archaeological region known as the North Coast of Peru is a 350-km. strip of desert interrupted by 10 oasis river valleys, from the Casma Valley to the Lam bayeque drainage (FIG. I). During the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1476 A.C.) this region was the heartland of the Chimu Empire, or Kingdom of Chimor.The Chimu 'capital was Chan Chan in the MocheValley (FIG. 2).8 From legendary beginnings in the thirteenth century A.C. the dynasty of Chimu rulers based in Chan Chan eventually expanded their control over more than 1,000 km. of coast stretching from the

6. Rowe, op. cit. (in note 2) 229-230, 270-271.

7. Rowe, op. cit. (in note 2) 231; Morris, op. cit. (in note 4) 394.

8. For descriptions of Chan Chan and other Chimu settlements in the Moche Valley see Margaret A. Hoyt and M. Edward Moseley, "The Burr Frieze: A Rediscovery at Chan Chan," Nawpa Pacha 7-8 (1971)41-58; Kent C. Day, "Urban Planning at Chan Chan, Peru," Man.

JEQUETEPEQUE .:

SANTA' ....

NORTH COAST OF PERU

o 50 100 KM

Figure 1. Map of the North Coast of Peru.

Settlement, and Urbanism, eds., P. J. Ucko, R. Tringham, and G. W. Dimbleby (London 1972) 927-930; M. Edward Moseley and Carol J. Mackey, "Chan Chan, Peru's Ancient City of Kings," NatGeog 143 (1973) 318-354; Kent C. Day, "Architecture of Ciudadela Rivero, Chan Chan, Peru" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1973); Richard W. Keatinge and Kent C. Day, "Socio-Economic Organiza tion of the Moche Valley, Peru, During the Chimu Occupation of Chan Chan," JAR 29 (1973) 275-295; Richard W. Keatinge and Kent C. Day, "Chan Chan: A Study of Precolumbian Urbanism and the Management of Land and Water Resources in Peru," Archaeology 27 (1974) 228-235; M. Edward Moseley and Carol J. Mackey, Twenty Four Architectural Plans of Chan Chan, Peru (Cambridge 1974); Anthony P. Andrews, "The U-Shaped Structures at Chan Chan, Peru," JFA 1 (1974) 241-264; M. Edward Moseley, "Chan Chan: An dean Alternative of the Preindustrial City," Science 187 (1975) 219-225; Richard W. Keatinge, "Urban Settlement Systems and RuralSustaining Communities: An Example from Chan Chan's Hinterland," JFA 2 (1975) 215-227.

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