How the Incas Built Their Heartland: State Formation and the Innovation of Imperial Strategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru (review)

In this volume, Covey makes a major contribution to Andean studies and, more broadly, the study of pre-Hispanic state formation and imperialism. He meshes ethnohistorical analysis and archaeological research to develop what he terms a “process-based” approach to the interpretation of Inca imperial expansion. Conventional historical approaches emphasize the rapidity of Inca expansion and the quasi-mythical role of certain heroic figures and miraculous events at the center of many royal Inca and Spanish Colonial accounts. Covey suggests that a new reading of Colonial chronicles in light of recent archeological research points to a long period of Inca state consolidation preceding expansion outside of its mountainous Cuzco heartland.

Archaeological research in and around the Basin locates the origins of Inca state development as early as the Wari occupation of the nearby Lucre Basin during the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000). Without directly linking Wari and later Inca imperialism, Covey suggests that novel Wari practices such as intensive agriculture, modes of labor service, and centralized elite authority likely “set the stage for the political competition that culminated in Inca state formation” (p. 8). Carefully balancing reading of Colonial documents in light of archaeological research, including Covey’s own work in the Sacred Valley north of Cuzco, he outlines a complex portrait of Inca state development after AD 1000. Wari collapse, he suggests, left a political vacuum in a region characterized by elite competition, ethnic diversity, and multiple productive strategies adapted to a diversified and challenging landscape. The Cuzco Basin itself was a rich maize-producing zone, which gave rise to specific conditions stimulating political centralization, especially as a severe drought exacerbated competition over lands and resources after AD 1250.

In Chapters 6–8, Covey outlines some of the complex processes involved in state consolidation prior to Inca expansion. He sees several interwoven strategies as critical to this process. First, early Inca rulers developed a conquest ideology to justify the subordination of neighboring groups. This included a state religion focused on the sun, which nourished the precious maize crops grown on agricultural terraces and the ceremonial feasts that they fueled. Second, drawing on the ethnic and ecological diversity of their homeland, the Inca developed complex strategies for incorporating different societies. They strategically established marriage alliances with many groups, which created asymmetrical relations by distributing labor obligations that were reciprocated in Inca ceremonial feasts. Over generations, the authority of local leaders came to be curtailed and their roles became redundant as Inca elites gained increasing power. The Inca strategically employed military conquest to subjugate other groups. In particular, local rebellion provided a pretext for military conquest and establishing direct control. In subjugated regions, the Inca mobilized labor to intensify cultivation in valley bottoms. This fortified Inca power while it turned Cuzco itself into a wealthy center of feasting and ceremony.

Factional competition among Inca elites and rebellions among neighboring groups stimulated expansion outside of Cuzco after AD 1400, for which the strategies developed over generations were extrapolated across the Andes. New societies were incorporated by the most expedient and diplomatic means possible. Military conquest was justified as an acceptable reaction to hostility on the part of particular local elites, which facilitated direct control while building cooperation among local factions. Overall, Inca imperial strategies were opportunistic and evolved to meet local conditions. Imperial conquest, in turn, radically transformed the Cuzco heartland. While previously incorporated ethnic groups were granted honorary Inca status, the political economy of the region came to be dominated by royal Inca lineages. Conquered provincial populations were resettled around Cuzco to support royal estates as retainers, to intensify local production, or to produce other prestige items (e.g., coca, cloth, metal). As staple production was farmed out to provinces, the heartland came to be dominated by the production...