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Archaeological research in the Andes has emphasized agriculture to the detriment of all other modes of production. A marked bias towards research on the coast, where crop farming predominates, and prejudices arising from the prevailing agro-centric perspective has given rise to a wealth of information concerning agricultural adaptations to this vertical environment. This paper seeks to redress the balance by investigating the precocious nature of agro-pastoralist traditions in the north-central highlands of Peru (ad 1000–1570). I challenge current ideas concerning the mainstay of subsistence in the Prehispanic high Andes that essentially emphasize farming to the detriment of other modes of production. Rather, I argue for a rich tableau of closely articulated groups of agro-pastoral and mixed farming communities ensconced in the kichwa , suni and puna areas of the cordillera. In these mixed communities the archaeological evidence suggests that it is the camelid herders who controlled and exercised power over the mixed farming communities with a concomitant specialization and intensification of the pastoralist economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The means by which past complex societies thrived at high altitudes remain puzzling. In this paper I suggest that religious ideology and ritual practice shaped the cultural processes that fostered Tiwanaku state rise in the south-central Andean highlands. Physical changes in the monumental core of the state's principal centre are particularly revealing. Material transformations in monumental axiality, spatiality, materiality and iconography were critical elements in a changing religion that sought to integrate the symbolism of prominent generative forces such as mountains, vital elements such as water and recurring celestial cycles. After ad 500, Tiwanaku's innovative religion meshed imposing natural features with timeless solar cycles. This embodiment and objectification of nature was increasingly critical for a polity that thrived precariously on an effective coordination of fishing, herding and new technologies of high-altitude farming. The symbolic appropriation of the natural world and its immanent spiritual forces was constitutive of Tiwanaku's political integration of diverse societies and productive landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rich prehistoric archaeological record in Andean South America has obscured the importance of post-conquest historic sites in the region. Archaeologists researching the former Spanish colonies have long turned to the US ‘Borderlands’ and the Caribbean for models defining the archaeology of Spanish colonialism. Recently, however, Andean archaeologists have begun to create new emphases on the archaeology of colonialism and archaeologies of the later Andean republics. This region was a core area of Spanish overseas expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with much of the precious metal wealth of the empire produced in Andean mines. Today archaeologists in the Andean republics of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, and the foreign researchers who also work in the region, are overcoming geographic, financial and linguistic barriers to create a unified Andean historical archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]