Pre‐Hispanic Political Change and the Role of Maize in the Central Andes of Peru

Abstract

While archeologists have the capacity to track changing food use in the archeological record, they have not tended to use food systems in the study of social and political change. To do so, an awareness must be gained of the meanings of foods, which then can illuminate the strategic use of a particular food in the creation of relationships of dependence and prestige. Archeological evidence from the central Andes of Peru indicates that the role of maize changed between A.D. 500 and 1500, shifting from a culinary item, simply prepared by boiling, to a more complex symbolic food, transformed through grinding and brewing into beer, with elaborated political meanings. This change in maize processing and consumption occurred at a time of heightened political and social tensions. We propose that the shift in maize use reflected and participated in new political dynamics, demonstrating how foodways can inform archeologists about past social and political systems.

Examining Local Social Identities Through Patterns of Biological and Cultural Variation in the Solcor Ayllu, San Pedro De Atacama, Chile

“…Given the ritual and political importance of maize throughout time in the Andes (Cavero Carrasco 1986;Hastorf and Johannessen 1993), as well as evidence for the large-scale production of maize beer during the Middle Horizon (e.g., Cook and Glowacki 2003;Goldstein 2003;Janusek 2004), our carbon isotope results indicate that differential consumption of maize or of maize beer may have played a role in shaping and maintaining social distinctions between individuals or groups at San Pedro. If the slightly divergent radiogenic strontium isotope discrepancies between individuals interred in the Solcor 3 and Solcor Plaza cemeteries represent differences in the geographic origin of food sources, they may indicate that dietary distinctions between the social groups were maintained based not only on the types of foods consumed but also on the origins of food sources exploited.…”

Archaeological, radiological, and biological evidence offer insight into Inca child sacrifice

“…have also been used (23,30). Chicha was an important element of social and ceremonial gatherings, where ritual drunkenness was often obligatory (31); the Inca believed intoxication opened channels to the spiritual realm (32). The detection of COCE in hair is indicative of concurrent COC and alcohol ingestion (33).…”

Empires reconsidered: current archaeological approaches

“…Even so, the intensity of detailed study is beginning to affect more specialized theory, as archaeologists integrate insights gained from technological advances into thinking about how biological conditions and outcomes structured overarching imperial policy (Tung 2012b). Among the topics of interest are changes in diet by region and gender (Hastorf and Johannessen 1993;Turner et al 2012;Fenner et al 2014;Hakenbeck et al 2017), infant mortality and childhood health (Owen and Norconk 1987;Gowland and Redfern 2010), pathologies and disease (Verano and Lombardi 1999;Fears 2004;Eddy 2015), the effects of violence on subject populations (Tung 2012b), the stresses of labor (Norconk 1987), migration Tung 2012a), and the intersection of what had been largely distinct gene pools (e.g., Haun and Cock Carrasco 2010;Schmidt 2012;Hellenthal et al 2014;Shinoda 2015). More broadly, scholars have begun to investigate the biological effects on the subject societies of the imposition of massive resettlement and the extractive economy that sustained imperial enterprises (Andrushko 2007).…”