CHAPTER SEVEN
INKA STORAGE SYSTEMS IN THE IMPERIAL HEARTLAND (CUZCO, PERU): RISK MANAGEMENT, ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
R. Alan Covey, Kylie E. Quave, and Catherine E. Covey1
Introduction
Risk pervades all forms of human subsistence, and families, kin groups, and civil societies pursue strategies at different social scales to avoid disruptions to their food supplies (e.g., Halstead and O‘Shea 1989). Surplus production represents one strategy to mitigate risks of food insecurity, and it is not always compatible with other risk-reduction strategies (see Winterhalder, Lu, and Tucker 1999). Surplus can consist of extra food produced or collected and stored against predictable (and unanticipated) fluctuations in food supply, as well as other resources (e.g., domesticated animals, craft goods, money), and even labor obligations.
Ethnologists frequently downplay the role of surplus production in domestic economies—and across kin networks and communities—to emphasize principles of domestic satisficing and self-dampening social mechanisms (e.g., Sahlins 1972; cf. Dow 1981). Food-producing households labor to meet anticipated needs, and those that amplify production tend to do so only for a short time before dispersing accumulated surpluses (Rappaport 1968). Whether or not competitive feasting cycles and reciprocity-oriented gif networks keep surpluses from accumulating in a single household, they increase the likelihood that someone is always generating surplus. The quest for prestige can create temporary food patches that benefit people across a community or region, while exchange, gift, and marriage relationships cast a web of social obligations that can mitigate local food insecurity.
Surplus is typically associated more intimately with social power in complex societies, and particularly in states. Urban populations require steady surpluses produced primarily in rural contexts, which can be organized, assembled, and redistributed by public or private entities. Although state institutions figure prominently in discussions of surplus production and storage, noble individuals or families hold disproportionate economic power that can rival or approximate a political economy under certain circumstances (see Manzanilla on neighborhood centers, this volume). Nobles and representatives of state institutions might coerce subjects to give taxes, tribute, or labor for their risk-management strategies, but they might also attract voluntary investment for these. As they provide pools of labor for maintaining elite and state projects, peasant households also work to manage the risks that they perceive in their own domestic economies (see Hirth 1996). From a risk-management perspective, peasant economies buffer against more proximate and predictable risks, whereas noble and political economies claiming to protect society against large-scale catastrophes direct uneven flows of goods and labor. Ancient states should not be conceptualized as insurance corporations; participation was obligatory, ‘premiums’ could not be banked indefinitely, and the state did not always acknowledge a social debt toward its subjects, even when able to do so.
State risk-management strategies unfold within a broader sociopolitical context, and scholars should consider the impact of reallocating lands, goods, and labor from local networks; the dynamics of surplus growth and resource preservation that state strategies prescribed; and practices of surplus redistribution in good and bad times. This chapter discusses elite-directed storage in the Inka Empire (ca. 1400–1530s), the largest indigenous state to develop in the Americas (Figure 7.1). After discussing colonial Quechua vocabulary for risk, food insecurity, and storage, we review ethnohistoric descriptions of Inka storage systems in provincial regions and the area surrounding Cuzco, the imperial capital. Finally, we present an overview of architectural and archaeological evidence for Inka storehouses in the Cuzco region and implications for reconstructing Inka noble and political economies.
Andean Conceptualizations of Risk and Uncertainty
Early Quechua dictionaries reveal Andean views regarding risk and food insecurity in the generations following the Spanish conquest, although such sources are not direct windows into prehispanic conditions, and no lexicon captures the diversity of landscapes and social conditions. The 1560 dictionary of Domingo de Santo Tomás (1951 [1560]) includes entries for necessity and lack. For example, pisiy connotes a shortfall of what is needed or desired based on insuficient weight or measure—a failure owing to wastage, leakage, or some other loss. In contrast, muchuy is ‘not having what is needed,’ but also connotes the experience of punishment. In his early seventeenth-century lexicon, Diego González Holguín (1989 [1608]) links muchuy to God‘s punishment of sin. Whereas muchuy communicates suffering as a consequence of one‘s iniquities, wanay has a related but positive meaning; it is associated with both necessity and with correcting one‘s ways and making amends, especially for sinful behavior. For Inka nobles, shortages might reflect a failure to fulfill imperial labor demands, but local farmers might describe shortfalls in the reciprocity-based language of their kin and labor networks, conceptualizing suffering in supernatural terms, as a consequence of insufficient reverence to local ancestors and sacred entities.
Figure 7.1 Map of Inka Empire.
Early dictionaries define resource shortages, and González Holguín‘s entry for ‘sterile year’ (muchuy pacha or ch‘akiy wata) suggests difficult conditions across a region or for an extended period. Entries for hunger range in intensity from want of food (yarqay) to death by starvation (mihuymanta wañuy). The dictionaries define the act of inflicting poverty on others (waqchachiy), as well as enrichment of oneself (apu tukuy)—such distinctions suggest unequal distribution of resources that would be accentuated in times of food shortages. Poverty and lack of family are conceptually linked, suggesting that kin networks of risk management were considered distinct from mechanisms employed by nobles or state institutions to ensure that certain people were always fed. Inka interventions in local communities frequently disrupted social and economic networks to the point that royal intervention was needed, and it is noteworthy that the emperor and his wife both used the royal title waqchakhuyaq (‘compassionate toward the poor’) and reportedly provided for widows and orphans.
Storage terminology is common in the early Quechua dictionaries. Drought (ch‘akiy wata) represents a period of risk and food uncertainty, but drying food in the air or sun (masay) to store in a safe place (churay) addresses seasonal and annual climate Thuctuations. Several domestic features could hold stores, including elevated platforms for maize (marka), interior storage bins of various forms (pirwa, urun, taq‘e, ch‘away), and belowground pits for tubers (qoto) (e.g., Arriaga 1999 [1621]: chap. 2; Betanzos 1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 17; Garcilaso de la Vega 1965 [1609]: bk. 5, chap. 5). Taking things out (horqoy) for distribution connotes social hierarchy, as in González Holguín‘s entry for ‘to dispense’ (kamachisqamanta horqopuy: ‘to take out from that which is administered’). Santo Tomás lists a special structure for keeping stored goods (churakuna wasi), as well as a devoted social status specializing in dispensing stores (churakuy kamayuq). The seventeenth-century indigenous chronicle of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980 [1615]) links this kind of storage with the royal palace, which contained structures for drying food (masana wasi), guarding stored things (churana wasi), and brewing maize beer (aqha wasi). Such buildings reflect the role of noble and state institutions in provisioning certain individuals and households, and are consistent with a noble Inka economy that is identifiable in parts of the region surrounding Cuzco, the imperial capital.
A second type of storage facility typically linked to the Inka political economy is the qollqa, which Santo Tomás defines as a storehouse for grain, bread, or wine. A few chroniclers mention the qollqa in the context of surpluses collected for provincial administration (e.g., Guaman Poma de Ayala 1980 [1615]) (Figure 7.2), but most sources describe storehouses in Spanish without distinguishing whether they were qollqa or another kind of structure.
Inka Expansion and Political Economy
Inka imperial conquests after AD 1400 annexed vast and diverse new territories characterized by different pre-Inka patterns of surplus production and distribution (Covey 2008). Few highland areas at that time show evidence of agricultural intensification or storage outside of households. Populations in intermontane valleys and high-elevation pasture areas often settled in areas offering defense and local access to diverse agro-pastoral resources. In contrast, many coastal areas were economically centralized and specialized, with ostentatious noble strata and well-developed state institutions funded by hydraulic agriculture and full-time fishing populations (e.g., Marcus 2008; Moore and Mackey 2008). Coastal states invested heavily in specialized craft traditions and monumental constructions that converted surpluses of food and labor into ideological statements supporting state institutions and the ruling elite.
Inka conquest of decentralized regions led (to varying degrees) to the establishment of an imperial political economy. The administrative reorganization of provincial populations extracted significant pools of labor for state projects that could reduce food insecurity risks. New irrigation canals and agricultural terraces created lands that were less susceptible to drought and frost, and crop selection and fertilizer amplified harvests on state lands. Storehouse construction supported the collection, movement, and redistribution of state surpluses. An improved road network expanded the regional scope of staple economies (D‘Altroy 1992), and centrally organized camelid herding intensified high-elevation grazing, providing beasts of burden and fine fiber for craft production. Staple surpluses funded local administration, whereas the means of producing wealth goods shifted to the capital region, where they supported personal connections between the Inka ruler and the nobles and officials who staffed the imperial political hierarchy (D‘Altroy and Earle 1985).
Archaeologically, the study of Inka provincial storage emphasizes qollqa structures distributed along the imperial highway and near highland administrative centers and state farms (e.g., LeVine 1992); coastal storage is harder to identify and to associate with Inka imperial policies (e.g., Snead 1992). Early chroniclers associate provincial storehouses with state infrastructure, identifying their role in transporting raw materials and staple goods to key locations in the imperial network (Betanzos 1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 22; Cieza de León 1988 [ca. 1550]: chaps. 16, 18–20; cf. Diez de San Miguel 1964 [1567]; Ortiz de Zúñiga 1967 [1562], 1972 [1562]). Local officials stocked way stations with food and other necessities for state travelers (including soldiers), and Inka governors maintained large stores of maize, potatoes, and other staples at administrative centers. (Administrators sent raw materials for high-status craft production to Cuzco, where artisans crafted wealth goods that could be distributed as gif s from the Inka lord to faithful subjects.) Imperial officials used stored staple goods to feed laborers on state projects, and to fund periodic festivals that punctuated the provincial ritual calendar. When state functions in a given year did not exhaust these supplies, officials distributed them to ‘the poor’—widows, orphans, the disabled, and people without kin. Local communities also provided labor on special fields to support these individuals. Cieza de León (1988 [ca. 1550]) notes that provincial communities might receive food aid from state stores in bad times, as a loan that had to be repaid. Tributary laborers were fed while working on state projects, but they had no social right to the surpluses that their work generated.
Most provincial storehouses are groups of small circular or rectangular structures, the largest of which comprise hundreds or thousands of structures (e.g., Snead 1992). Some scholars associate round buildings with maize storage and rectangular ones with tubers, although documentary descriptions and excavation evidence indicate that a broader set of stores could be placed in either type of building (e.g., Betanzos 1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 22; D‘Altroy and Hastorf 1984). Storage architecture at provincial centers and other key sites worked in tandem with quipu (knotted string) records (Morris 1967), and it is likely that specific administrative units transported goods from a given source and placed them in a designated building (cf. Betanzos 1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 12). Hillside complexes were visible on the landscape as a mnemonic for state record keepers.
Storage and the Noble and Political Economy of the Inka Heartland
Storage in the Inka imperial heartland differed from highland provinces in at least one respect: the capital received precious metals, shell, tropical bird feathers, and other raw materials that were worked into fine craft goods. Eyewitnesses describe Cuzco as a place where great wealth was on display, but it went out to the provinces only as gif s from the Inka ruler (Covey 2009). Some materials and products were kept in special facilities, including palaces, temple complexes, and the ‘fortress’ of Saqsaywaman (see Bauer 2004). Despite the emphasis on wealth storage in early chronicles, there is evidence that the production and storage of staple surpluses was of central importance to the development of the Inka heartland.
Regarding domestic storage, the early chronicler Juan de Betanzos offers a detailed account of how Inka state growth involved the development of new storage facilities. Betanzos (1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 9) states that before the first Inka imperial conquests, local households maintained their own stores of food and cloth, storing maize in bins called orones (part I, chap. 17). As Inka dominion spread, Inka Yupanque (Pachacutic) issued decrees regulating storage and establishing Cuzco‘s political economy. The first of these required subject populations to produce surplus staple goods and transport them to Cuzco. Over a five-year period, Inka Yupanque ordered the construction of storehouses (depósitos) on the hillsides surrounding Cuzco and designated them for the storage of dried and fresh maize, chili peppers, beans, dried potatoes, quinoa, dried meat, and other foodstuffs (Betanzos 1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 12). These supplies fed workers involved in state construction projects, and the lords and citizens of Cuzco also received provisions to augment stores that they produced to support their own households and servants.
After securing the urban food supply, Inka Yupanque ordered new storehouses for textiles, both high status garments and rough cabuya cloth used in state work projects (Betanzos 1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 13). Once the ruler controlled massive surpluses of staple and craft goods, he provisioned new households, although families were still expected to produce their own surpluses and store them at home. There were food distributions in Cuzco every four months and an annual textile distribution. If state-given stores were accidentally destroyed, they were replaced from the state storehouses so that misfortune would not leave anyone in need. This state-dictated insurance program reportedly broadened state storage categories to include all domestic goods—even cabuya shoes for llamas to wear. Inka Yupanque gave staple goods to the people of Cuzco, but he also confiscated wealth brought to the city privately, which went into state storehouses (Betanzos 1999 [1550s]: part I, chap. 21).
Early archival records mention storage complexes in Cuzco and in the countryside near royal estate lands (Rostworowski 1970: 83; Villanueva Urteaga 1971: 50). Rural storage facilities housed noble surpluses, which remained private resources that were distinct from surpluses used for state projects. Garcilaso de la Vega (1965 [1609]: bk. 5, chap. 5) remembers large storehouses in the Cuzco region with bins (pirwa) built in their interiors, which held surpluses of the nobility and the state religion. Stating that he had seen such constructions during his youth in Cuzco—in the former aqllawasi complex—this chronicler claims that these facilities collected food not only for ceremonial occasions but also for feeding people working for the individual, lineage, or institution that owned a bin.
Archaeological Evidence for Storage in the Inka Imperial Heartland
Despite the recognition of the distinctive storage architecture of the Cuzco region (e.g., Morris 1967), contemporary scholarship tends to presume that an imperial political economy similar to that of the provinces also governed the capital. Cuzco-region storehouses share some architectural characteristics, but there are important differences in form and function that should be considered. Developing a regional perspective on storage and economy in rural Cuzco is a challenging archaeological task, owing to the variable architectural preservation across the region, the continued use of some buildings in the Colonial period, and problems with assuming a consistent linkage between form and function for surviving architecture. Acknowledging the limitations of the present evidence, we discuss storehouses found to the north and west of the Cuzco Valley, in areas systematically surveyed by the first author (Figure 7.3).
Domestic Storage in the Imperial Period
There is limited excavation evidence for reconstructing domestic storage practices in imperial Cuzco. In the Cusichaca region, Kendall (1994: 44) interprets postholes in several domestic structures as indicating raised storage areas (marka) at the sites of Huillca Racay and Patallacta. Other excavators describe circular stone-paved platforms in possible Inka domestic structures south of Cuzco in Chumbivilcas, although their storage function remains debatable (Galiano Blanco 2010). This is a distinct practice from the semi-subterranean storage of tubers (qoto) in other higher-elevation areas (e.g., Kosiba 2010). Until more data are available from early and imperial Inka households, the consideration of storage must be limited to a top-down general analysis of specialized storage complexes preserved in some parts of the Cuzco region.
Architecture of Cuzco Inka Storage Complexes
Most surviving storage architecture is not directly associated with state installations or elite compounds, so it is likely that the majority of structures seen today in the Cuzco region held staple goods or lower-status craft items rather than exotic raw materials and wealth goods. This observation is significant because storage structures in the Cuzco region often have architectural plans that are distinct from the provincial qollqa. Jean-Pierre Protzen (1993) has formalized this distinction in his designation of two types of rectangular storage structure.
Type 1 Storehouses
Type 1 structures are analogous to rectangular provincial qollqas. Tey are either long structures subdivided into small chambers, or lines of closely spaced, single-chambered structures (Figure 7.4). Whereas the provincial qollqa rarely has more than two chambers, Type 1 storehouses in the Cuzco region have as many as five or six interior chambers. In cases where Type 1 complexes comprise multiple freestanding structures, individual chambers seem to be more closely placed and aligned into a more compact facility. Building areas for individual chambers are modest, with average dimensions of 1.8 by 1.6 meters (2.88 square meters) for those studied by Protzen. Huaycochea (1994) noted somewhat larger interiors in her study sample, although chamber size typically was less than ten square meters. Modest-size complexes of Type 1 storehouses are common around Ollantaytambo, but are not found in large numbers in other parts of the Cuzco region.
Figure 7.4 Photograph of a Type 1 complex at Pusaqraqayniyuq in the Sacred Valley near Urubamba.
Figure 7.5 Photograph of a Type 2 storage compound located above Ollantaytambo.
Type 2 Storehouses
Whereas Type 1 storehouses are analogous (but not identical) to the square provincial qollqa, Protzen‘s Type 2 has no provincial counterpart (cf. Morris 1967). The Type 2 storehouses at Ollantaytambo are rectangular, with widths of about three meters and lengths ranging from ten to thirty-eight meters (interior areas of thirty to more than one hundred square meters) (Figure 7.5). The large range in building areas suggests great diversity in interior areas and overall storage capacity. Research elsewhere in the Cuzco region has identified well over one hundred additional Type 2 structures, primarily at sites in the Cuzco Valley and in or near the Sacred Valley. Surviving complexes in the Cuzco Valley have a modest number of structures arranged in evenly spaced rows that often share a central staircase. The architecture is consistent with smaller Type 2 structures from Ollantaytambo, with interior areas ranging from thirty to sixty square meters (Candía Gómez 1992; Huaycochea 1994; Pilco 2006; Rivera Dorado 1971; Rowe 1967). These facilities contrast with the large Sacred Valley area complexes at Cheqoq, Wayna Qollqa, and Machu Qollqa, which contain dozens of buildings, with multiple structure sizes found in distinct zones (Guevara 2003, 2004; Morris 1992; Niles 1999; Soto H. 2002; Valencia Sosa 2004). For example, Machu Qollqa has seven storehouses in the sixty-square-meters range (roughly four by sixteen meters), but most structures at the large complexes have interior areas of more than one hundred square meters, with numerous storehouses larger than two hundred square meters. Estimated roofed areas at the largest facilities reach several thousand square meters—a vastly different scale from the complexes observed by Protzen (1993) and Huaycochea (1994).
Figure 7.6 Interior bins from a large Type 2 storehouse at Cheqoq.
Roofed area does not necessarily provide a straightforward measure of storage capacity. Although ventilation features have been observed in both small and large Type 2 storehouses, the largest structures contain rows of mud-plastered bins in their interiors (Figure 7.6). Whereas the single chambers found in Type 1 structures might reflect the production of a particular field or the work of a tributary unit, bins represent extensions of the domestic storage apparatus that reportedly held food belonging to a given individual or institution. Bins have not been identified in smaller Type 2 storehouses, suggesting different storage practices within and between sites.
Distribution of Inka Storage Complexes to the North and West of Cuzco
A series of full-coverage surveys in a twelve-hundred-square-kilometer region to the north and west of Cuzco—an area known to contain several royal estates and state installations (see Figure 7.3)—identified more than twenty sites with Inka storehouses, most of them close to the Sacred Valley (Table 7.1) (Covey 2014).
Survey evidence indicates considerable diversity in the size and location of storage architecture. The most accessible and visible storage architecture often consists of single structures or small complexes (e.g., VS-017, Pachar, CY-87), often situated a few hours‘ travel time from Inka country palaces. Surface pottery from these installations demonstrates strong Inka affiliations, suggesting that their construction reflects imperial administrative practices. Stylistically, such structures might represent an Inka aesthetic program to communicate abundance across the landscape, a way for elite messages to echo at a distance from royal centers.
Intermediate-size storage complexes tend to be located closer to terrace complexes of royal estates, but a few hundred meters above the valley floor in locations conducive to drying and preserving food. Sites like Iglesiayuq and Inka Racay appear to belong to production infrastructure associated with royal estates, and they have counterparts elsewhere in the Cuzco region (e.g., Taucaray, Sillkinchani, and Qhataqasapatallaqta) (Huaycochea 1994; Niles 1999; Protzen 1993).
The largest surviving storage complexes—Cheqoq, Wayna Qollqa, and Machu Qollqa—lie several hundred meters above the valley floor, at a distance from royal estates and agricultural infrastructure. Despite their remote locations, these complexes are found in areas where noble lineages claimed to have herds and retainers (e.g., Quave 2012). Although surface collections from Wayna Qollqa show a clear imperial Inka affiliation, Cheqoq and Machu Qollqa both have strong Late Intermediate Period (LIP) components. Architectural variations indicate multiple construction phases, and excavation results reveal a pre-imperial use of some storage structures. The Inka expansion of these facilities may derive from preexisting local use, as Cheqoq and Machu Qollqa both lie near LIP village clusters (Covey 2014). The higher elevations of these sites might also present better conditions for long-term storage. Excavations at Cheqoq and Machu Qollqa have revealed Inka domestic components associated with the storehouses, perhaps residences of administrators.
Site |
Description |
VS-017 |
Three Type 2 structures built in a row as a single complex |
Pukara Pantillijlla (VS-176) |
Three possible Type 1 structures at an early Inka secondary center |
Iglesiayuq (VS-249) |
Three single-chamber Type 1 structures, at least two small Type 2 structures |
Qenqo Raqay (VS-270) |
Six Type 2 structures arranged in two rows |
VS-286 |
Two possible Type 2 structures |
VS-325 |
One Type 2 structure |
Pillquwayq (VS-345) |
At least one possible storehouse |
Minasmoqo (VS-394) |
Four storehouses, type uncertain |
Tunasmoqo (VS-395) |
Three or more possible small Type 2 structures |
VS-398 |
Four small circular and semicircular structures |
Pisaq (VS-409) |
Six to eight possible Type 2 structures near ceremonial sector of royal estate |
Cheqoq (X-075) |
More than twenty large Type 2 structures |
Wayna Qollqa (X-108) |
More than thirty-five large Type 2 structures |
Machu Qollqa (X-141) |
Approximately thirty medium and large Type 2 structures |
Pachar (X-235) |
One Type 1 with four chambers, remains of other possible storehouses |
Tambo Real (X-422) |
Remains of unknown number of storehouses |
Yawarmaki (CY-19) |
One Type 1 structure with five chambers |
CY-79 |
Two large Type 2 structures |
CY-87 |
One small Type 2 structure |
Pusaqraqayniyuq (CY-92) |
Eight single-chamber Type 1 structures in two rows |
Inka Racay (CY-139) |
Six or more Type 2 structures in two rows (Niles 1999) |
Contexts and Contents of Rural Inka Storehouses
Survey collections are valuable for discussing the distribution of known storage architecture, but only excavations can demonstrate the chronology of use and permit in situ recovery of stored goods. Excavations at several Inka storage complexes in the Cuzco region provide comparative samples of artifacts and macrobotanical remains, although not all work has systematically documented the organization and use of interior space in storehouses. Excavated assemblages provide further evidence for the chronology, function, and organization of storage in Cuzco; work adjacent to storage complexes offers a comparative data set on associated habitation contexts, adding perspectives on domestic consumption patterns.
Excavated Ceramic Assemblages
Excavations in Cuzco storehouses have yielded LIP (including Killke), Inka, and colonial pottery in variable quantities, a pattern consistent with results from surface collections. Huaycochea‘s (1994) test excavations in Type 1 storehouses in the Patakancha Valley encountered a modest assemblage similar to that reported from provincial regions: high percentages of undecorated Inka storage jars (e.g., D‘Altroy and Hastorf 1984: 343; Morris 1967). This contrasts with assemblages from recent excavations in Type 2 structures closer to Cuzco. At Cheqoq, the 2009 excavation of a cross section of a storehouse by the Cheqoq Archaeological Project (henceforth CHAP), directed by Quave, encountered mostly utilitarian and local LIP pottery (Quave 2012). Use of the storehouse began prior to Inka expansion into Maras, though other excavated structures at the site attest to its expansion during the imperial period. The structure excavated by CHAP yielded small percentages of imperial Inka ceramics, contrasting with Guevarâs (2004) excavation of other storehouses at Cheqoq, for which he reported larger proportions of imperial pottery. Polychrome Inka and Inka utilitarian vessels comprise roughly 80 percent of Guevarâs analyzed assemblage, and the remaining material consisted of Killke and other unspecified types.
Storehouses at Machu Qollqa also indicate a pre-imperial facility that grew during the imperial period. Type 2 storehouses yielded high percentages of LIP pottery that excavators identified as predominantly Killke. In visits to the project laboratory, we observed a significant local LIP component in the excavated assemblage. Excavators encountered a small sample of decorated Inka pottery, made from a different ware from that identified at Cheqoq. Distinct Inka ceramic assemblages at the two sites might indicate different ceramic workshops, different stored goods, or both. Recent excavations report larger proportions of Inka and colonial pottery in the smaller storehouses at Machu Qollqa (Valencia Sosa 2004).
Despite variations in the recovery and analysis of pottery in Cuzco storehouses, the excavated ceramics clearly differ from provincial qollqa assemblages. Whereas the latter are imperial-era contexts where imperial jar forms predominate, the Cuzco region has facilities established prior to the first Inka campaigns beyond the Cuzco region. Excavated vessel forms in Type 2 structures are more diverse and have higher percentages of decoration, suggesting distinctions in the social activities occurring as surpluses were preserved, stored under guard, and removed for consumption. Large Type 2 structures with clay storage bins should have fewer of the large undecorated Inka jar forms commonly found in provincial storehouses. This seems to be the case at Cheqoq, where Guevara (2004) encountered modest samples of narrow-mouth Inka jars, with more abundant remains of plates, bowls, and cups, many of them decorated. CHAP excavations in a nearby storehouse encountered a similar breadth of vessel forms (two narrow-mouth jars, a wide-mouth jar, a pot, and a plate or bowl), although there were fewer decorated vessels.
Excavated Botanical Remains
The prominence of maize in the Inka economy and state religion makes it tempting to assume that storehouses held vast amounts of the state crop (Table 7.2). Maize has appeared in many excavations but not all. Huaycochea (1994: 157) identified small quantities of maize cob fragments in Thve units at Peñas (near Ollantaytambo), and Pilco‘s excavations at Willka Qollqa in the Cuzco Valley recovered charred maize kernels (Pilco 2006). The botanical remains from other excavations do not appear to include maize. For example, excavated storehouses at Pumamarca lacked maize remains but showed evidence of unidentified roots and leaves (Huaycochea 1994: 157). Huaycochea excavated an unidentified fruit seed at Peñas, indicating that cultivars other than maize were indeed stored there. It is important not to make too much of the available botanical evidence without considering variations in site taphonomy and methods for recovering, processing, and analyzing samples.
Complex |
Taxa | References |
Peñas |
Maize (rachis, cupules), unidentified vegetal material, unidentified fruit seed | Huaycochea 1994 |
Pumamarca |
Unidentified vegetal material | Huaycochea 1994 |
Willka Qollqa |
Maize (kernels) | Pilco 2006 |
Cheqoq |
Maize (kernels, cobs), chuño, quinoa/kiwicha (seeds), possible Phaseolus (seeds), possible ichu (stalks), verbena (seeds), muña (stalks) | Bertone 2011; Guevara 2004; Quave 2012 |
Machu Qollqa |
Tuber, quinoa/kiwicha (seeds), cactus (seeds), unidentified stalks | Eulogio Alccacontor Pumayalli and Victor Qhawana, personal communication, 2010; Bertone 2011; Quave 2012 |
For example, Guevara (2004) identified maize kernels and cobs and chuño (freeze-dried potato) through visual inspection during excavations at Cheqoq. CHAP‘s 2009 storehouse excavations at the same site recovered macrobotanical remains from hand recovery and fiotation samples, and systematic analysis by the Laboratorio de Investigaciones Arqueobotánicas del Perú (LIAP) identified carbonized maize kernels, quinoa or kiwicha, verbena, muña, and possibly beans and ichu grass (Bertone 2011). At nearby Machu Qollqa, excavators allowed us to collect bulk samples for fiotation in 2010. These yielded quinoa or kiwicha in both of the Type 2 storehouses sampled (Bertone 2011), and excavators at the site have also visually identified carbonized tuber remains during the course of fieldwork.
Together, the ceramic and botanical data from excavated storehouses in the Cuzco region indicate storage practices that differ from provincial qollqas. They also suggest functional variation among storage sites in the Inka heartland, and even within different sectors of larger storage facilities. Although more research is needed, it appears that a wider range of activities took place in the Cuzco storehouses than in a typical provincial qollqa, presumably because depositing stored goods in a provincial qollqa represented the fulfillment of a state-mandated tributary task, rather than an important collective process of laying away stores for noble households and those serving them.
Discussion and Conclusion
Some of the differences observed between storage in the Cuzco region and Inka provinces might be attributed to chronology, function, style, or social affiliation. Some Cuzco storage facilities (especially Type 2 structures) could reflect early Inka storage practices (Morris 1992), whereas the single-room qollqa of provincial regions (especially round forms) would reflect imperial-era practices. There is evidence that some storehouses in Cuzco predate the imperial period, although it is also clear that the architectural form continued to be built and used in architecture associated with later Inka rulers.
Conversely, some Cuzco storehouses might have had a distinct function from that of provincial qollqa. Protzen (1993) has studied the architecture of Type 2 storehouses to evaluate their potential to circulate air for drying and preserving foodstuffs, and the presence of ventilation features and bins in recently excavated Type 2 structures indicates additional features enhancing these functions. Morris‘s (1967) excavations at Huánuco Pampa encountered evidence of tuber preservation in rectangular (Type 1) structures, with circular buildings used to store maize that had been dried, shelled, and placed in narrow-mouth jars. The initial work of processing maize, tubers, and other crops appears to have occurred outside of Inka provincial centers, whereas such work might have been performed on site at some storage facilities in the imperial heartland.
The distinct Cuzco storehouse architecture might have developed to communicate a different ideological message from that conveyed in provincial contexts. We have suggested that provincial storehouses served as a record-keeping mnemonic, and that structures might have been linked to particular labor units and productive lands, rather than being filled to capacity as goods arrived at a site. Provincial storage complexes visually dominated the landscapes surrounding administrative centers and along the royal highway corridor. In the Cuzco region, the maintenance of a distinct structural form (Type 2) might communicate abundance and domination in the idiom of the royal estate system. That is, Type 2 structures identified the power and domains of noble Inka families and their deceased royal founders whose mummies still retained putative ownership over estate resources. The presence of dispersed small-scale complexes in the heartland suggests different administrative practices in the noble lineage-administered storage in Cuzco when compared with provincial facilities.
Related to functional and stylistic arguments, Cuzco region storehouses might differ from provincial ones because different social groups used them. Long strings of small single-room structures might facilitate the work of a quipu specialist in monitoring the labor of provincial labor units transporting preserved foods from state fields to storehouses, but interior bins in larger Type 2 storehouse complexes in the Cuzco region suggest a more private domestic communication of the ‘family’ of people who served a particular noble household and were fed from its accumulated stores. Where strings of qollqa symbolized the administrative aspect of Inka sovereignty—as lord (apu) over a hierarchy of administrators (kurakas)—a facility for processing and laying away estate stores could communicate the social power of Inka nobles as lords (yayanq) or ladies (mama) governing the kin and servants making up their household and retinue.
Considering this, we suggest that most Cuzco region storehouses should not be interpreted as comparable to provincial qollqa complexes. Some small complexes, perhaps including single valley-bottom structures, might have functioned as qollqa, possibly holding surpluses to feed travelers or local officials. Larger complexes might instead represent what would more properly be called masana wasi or churakuna wasi. The presence of the masana wasi would indicate that in the Inka imperial heartland representatives of the nobility and the state religion directly supervised the drying and preservation of staple goods coming from their lands.
Such interpretations have implications for understanding Inka political economy. It would mean that most storage architecture seen in Cuzco today represents resources managed outside the political realm. Instead, the noble economy dominated the most productive areas, with rulers and their wives also designating resources not expropriated from existing local communities for use by the state religion. Identifying some storage facilities as churakuna wasi acknowledges that royal estates were more than country palaces—they included lands, herds, special resources (like salt pans), and a diverse constituency of special laborers. Some estate workers served Inka families as subordinate members of their households, while others performed temporary service extracted from the provinces by an administrative hierarchy invoking the name of the ruling Inka.
The living ruler and his family benefited from provincial labor used to improve agricultural infrastructure and produce wealth goods, which were redistributed as gif s from the ruler. This suggests that the provincial political economy ultimately generated surpluses that were used to shore up the status of the ruling Inka family, which accords with the Inka practice of split inheritance that appears in numerous Colonial sources (e.g., Cieza de León 1988 [ca. 1550]: chap. 11). Beyond the Cuzco region, Inka political economy emphasized staple surpluses to fund the improvement and maintenance of infrastructure, to support the military, and to offer periodic support for individuals and kin groups so that they could remain autonomous and provide labor service to the state in the name of the ruling Inka.
Returning to the issue of risk, it is possible to see how surplus production and storage worked toward different ends in the Inka heartland and provinces. In the Cuzco region, the noble economy developed as an extension of the domestic economy, with the ruling family provisioning other households from surpluses produced on its lands or brought to the capital as tributary labor. Betanzos describes Inka-supervised marriages as creating new households with rights to state food support and the protection of their private property. The chronicles state that the Inkas manipulated marriage practices in their provinces, as well, but the constitution of new households there created tributary obligations rather than privileges. Labor service given to the Inka generated surpluses to which the laborers had no social rights, simultaneously diminishing the ability of local households, kin networks, and communities to maintain their own risk-reduction strategies. The Inka state offered a limited degree of assistance when warfare, drought, and other hardships broke down family networks, but in ways that reinforced the social gulf between the ruler and the ‘poor’ recipients of his charity. Inka risk management aimed to stave off large-scale social risks such as factional disorder in the capital region, or armed uprisings in the provinces. Doing so imposed more proximate risks of food uncertainty on provincial households and increased the unequal distribution of social power across the empire.
Notes
1. R. Alan Covey received support from a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship, the National Science Foundation (BCS-0342381), the National Geographic Society, and the Heinz Grant Program for Latin American Archaeology for survey work reported here. Kylie E. Quave received funds from the National Geographic Society (8691-09), Fulbright IIE, and the National Science Foundation (BCS-938453) for excavations at Cheqoq.
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