11/18 lecture

south america

• lots of environmental variability

  • mountains, coast, plains, jungle (amazon)

• terrain is vertically a lot, not horizontally

  • mountain, plain, mountain, jungle

  • SA coast has many small valleys, each with a characteristic culture

el niño

• seasonal rainstorm

• unusually WARM temperatures and lots of RAIN

  • devastating for people on the western coast

commodities

• potatoes

• quinoa (peru, bolivia)

• cotton

  • textiles

• anchovies

  • easy to fish, dry, and transport

• llamas, alpacas

• guinea pigs

llamas

• domesticated by 4000 BC

• helped people carry things, especially in the mountains

maize

• domesticated in Mexico but used in SA starting 2200 BC

other cultural activities by 2200 BC

• weaving

  • textile preservation is good in the desert

• metal making

  • tools, etc

• large scale architecture

  • settlements

  • ex. El Paraiso (over 100k tons of stone!)

  • leaders organizing ppl to do ordinary and spectacular things

many cultures in the Andes (mts)

• crafts, etc

inka (inca) culture starting c. 1200 CE

• culture involved augmentation of existing strategies and conditions

  • ex. mountain terracing

• textiles

  • incredibly detailed! both function and aesthetics

  • evidence: ordinary sites, and mummies

• mummy bundles

  • up to 400 lbs of cotton

inka empire (1476-1533) CE

• political leaders unify the Inca

• 80 political provinces

• cuzco = capital

  • right in the middle

  • “central hub”

  • extremely organized into blocks and neighborhoods

• Machu picchu

• architecture

  • widespread along the entire empire

• Inka “Staff god”

  • design that had been used in SA for hundreds of years before the Inca

• organization

  • no money, but there’s a labor tax

  • no writing, but there’s a quipu

    • strings, probably some kind of decimal system

  • Inca road

    • not just functional, but also intimidational

      • inca army can come back at any time

  • inka storage

    • by the sides of the roads

places and landscapes

Landscapes are more than just the natural environment. they are “the arena for all of a community’s activities… Through their daily activities, beliefs, and values, communities transform physical spaces into meaningful places”. _________

reading

• Acuto et al

• landscapes of inequality, spectacle, and control: Inca social order in provincial contexts

3 types of landscape

• landscapes of inequality

  • towns built like Ollantaytambo with a well-built half and a half with poor construction where workers lived

    • 90 km NW of Cuzco

• landscapes of ritual

  • plazas for ceremonies and feasting with central ushnu platform structure

• landscapes of control: privacy and access

  colonialism is a form of domination - the control by individuals or groups over the territory and/or behavior of other individuals or groups

  R. Horvath (1972:46)

  ^^ancient people can also be colonialists

  throughout their empiure, the Inkas strategically used their settlements’ spatial design and architecture as a mechanism of power to produce……. ____

  acuto

• Inca empire only lasted for 3 generations

  • they didn’t last as long as the Maya, Romans, or Aztecs

  • Pizarro and the Inka (1532)

    • end of the Inca empire