1

Preprint of: Quave, Kylie. 2018. “Royal Estates and Imperial Centers in the Cuzco Region.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Incas, edited by Sonia Alconini and Alan Covey, 101–18. New York: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190219352.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190219352-e-41.

Chapter 2. 1

Royal Estates and Imperial Centers in the Cuzco Region

Kylie E. Quave

By the 16th-century zenith of several centuries of sociopolitical integration in the Cuzco

region, the imperial Incas had irreversibly altered their surrounding countryside. Cuzco’s nobles

undertook projects ranging from shifting river courses to constructing monumental palaces and

temples. Beyond the urban capital and the basin of Cuzco, the greater Cuzco region was home to

many locales of social, political, economic, and ideological importance. Monumental sites,

including royal estates and imperial centers, are best framed within larger mosaics of resources

including pasture and farmlands, recreational areas, coca plots, and other facilities. These

systems of royal estates and imperial centers dominate the landscape of the inner heartland, and

played a critical role in ensuring incorporation and consolidation of people, places, and resources

to benefit the development of the empire. New forms of monumental architecture, standardized

and distinct forms of ceramics, metals, and textiles, and an influx of migrants from distant lands

allowed factional (royal estate) and institutional (imperial facilities) agents to alter the Cuzco

region, bring order, and ensure participation in the imperial effort. The visible, corporeal ways

that Inca power was materialized in the heartland (DeMarrais et al. 1996) promoted the agendas

of noble lineages, and ensured wealth production that would ultimately benefit the larger empire.

2

This chapter examines the landscape of those royal estates and imperial centers in rural

Cuzco (Figure 2.1.1). This information is supplemented with excavation results from the royal

estate installation at Cheqoq in Maras, just 30 km northwest of Cuzco. Cheqoq reveals that

economic development was not created merely from the top down through materialization of

ideology, but also through factional and localized noble interests and the agendas of individuals

and households that were attached to noble families. Those subordinate populations willingly

contributed in significant ways to imperial economic development. They also exerted their own

social power (Mann 1984) through patterns of staple and craft production (Schortman and Urban

2004) and prestige goods consumption (Helms 1993). A view of royal estates and imperial

centers aids in reconstructing the efforts made by the Cuzco Incas to consolidate their hold on

those neighboring their capital.

[Insert Quave- Figure 2.1.1 here]

<1>Defining Royal Estates and Imperial Centers

Royal estates and imperial centers dominated the rural landscape of Cuzco and organized

allies and subjects in the name of the nobility and the state, respectively. However, formulating

mutually exclusive definitions for each is a difficult task due to the nature of the data set from

which sites are identified. There has historically been a tendency to focus on the most visible and

monumental sites, particularly palaces and well-preserved fine architecture (e.g., Machu Picchu).

As a result, the focal points in reconstructing the region are biased, and scale is conflated with

power. Further, identifying estates and imperial facilities has also been predicated upon historical

references to the regional role of the place and its residents, and the fraught question of

ownership, inheritance, and lineage (Covey, Chapter 1.2; D’Altroy. Chapter 3.1). This is

particularly the case of noble resources. These criteria are restrictive due to the biases and

3

limitations of the architectural and historical records. For the former, preservation is uneven and

sometimes obscured by Colonial and modern construction. Regarding the latter, both Spaniards

and indigenous parties employed disparate and conflicting agendas and influence. The desire to

acquire land and power within the guidelines of the Spanish Colonial government while laying

claim to Inca cosmology, sometimes led to inflated or outright inaccurate claims to royal estates

(Covey and Amado 2008:365). Furthermore, there was no single method of estate inheritance, as

the bloodline and marital relationships between Cuzco’s elites were complex and intermingled.

Such a multifarious setting for inheritance, coupled with the influence of factional agendas, set

the stage for convoluted, contradictory claims in the Colonial period. In order to move beyond

the grandest palace walls and loudest archival voices, and toward a holistic understanding of how

imperial power was consolidated in the heartland, we must look to a variety of site types

contributing to a range of functions.

What indeed are the royal estates and imperial centers, if not the most visible and best

documented localities in Cuzco? Royal estates are settlement and resource systems related to

noble kin groups and identified by documentary claims, while imperial facilities in Cuzco are

differentiated as those not associated with private noble ownership. Imperial centers in the

heartland include the largest facilities situated along the royal highway system, and well-

populated sites that consist of a variety of public spaces including administrative and ritual

features in line with the Inca architectural canon. It is tempting to label sites with documented

ties to noble lineages as royal estates, and to categorize all other seemingly major sites as

administrative imperial installations. However, this “marked/unmarked” dichotomy is a false one

with an overreliance on the presence or absence of equivocal Colonial claims.

4

Royal estates are comprised of a mosaic of resources and people that pertain to particular

noble Cuzco factions, also called royal ayllus (or panaca). While royal estates were eventually

held in the name of a royal descent group, they were initially developed by the ruler or the royal

couple until death (Covey 2011:31-32). Early Spanish chroniclers and native informants name

rulers’ wives and women who managed estates. Some plots, especially coca leaf-growing lands,

were claimed in the names of queens and other important women (Covey 2006:231-32). These

estates were not necessarily contiguous and many include more than one palace (Rostworowski

de Díez Canseco 1970:159; Rowe 1997:277). Private lands and resources were intermingled with

community lands, and state and sun cult holdings. Some of the estate’s components included

storage, herds and pastures, forests of timber and hunted species, gardens (sometimes referred to

as moyas), irrigated and improved fields, coca fields, salt sources, and infrastructure such as

bridges and towns (Levillier 1940; Niles 1999, 2004; Rostworowski de Díez Canseco 1970;

Villanueva 1970). Thousands of temporary labor colonists ( mitmacona) from the provinces

constructed estate lands and worked them in tribute rotation, while retainers (yanacona) were

also permanently resettled to produce wealth for maintaining the legacy of deceased nobles (see

Rowe 1982). To some extent, as described at Cheqoq below, the non-noble laborers on the

estates also shared in that resulting wealth.

According to most records, the institution of the royal estates began with Inca Roca,

Viracocha Inca, or Pachacuti. Earlier rulers established estates within the Cuzco Basin, and by

the time of Viracocha, they were developed beyond the Basin (Figure 2.1.1). Niles compiled a

list of royal estate and palace holdings by ruler based on the published archival and chronicle

data available at the time of publication (1999:76-7). This was expanded and updated by Covey

(2003:351) and D’Altroy (2015:215-16). Many of the Cuzco region’s royal estates fall within the

5

Urubamba-Vilcanota Valley between Pisaq and Machu Picchu, although there are palaces and

plots (e.g., coca) in the regions beyond (e.g., Choquequirao). Within the urban capital, there are

also palaces named for particular rulers’ factions, such as the Casana (Bauer 2004, Farrington

2013). Beyond the heartland, there are a few examples of agricultural resources, people (

yanacona and mitmacona), and towns named in the native testimonies as royal estates with

laborers devoted in particular to the rulers Tupa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac. In the

Cochabamba valley, Bolivia, for example, Wachtel demonstrates that in towns that were

otherwise devoted to supporting the imperial army, a fraction of the population claimed to be

part of a royal estate (1982). Another form of provincial royal estate may be found in

Tomebamba, Ecuador, which included a personal palace honoring Huayna Capaz’s maternal

lineage and an elaborate temple with golden idols (Jamieson 2003).

[Insert Quave- Figure 2.1.1 here]

The provincial examples, however, are fewer than those of rural Cuzco. It is not yet clear

whether this is due to the relative lack of early Colonial testimony related to them, or if our

toolkit for archaeologically recognizing royal estates is not yet robust enough in the absence of

archival data. Again, in provincial settings, we tend to identify well-populated sites with

resources similar to the estates as imperial administrative centers, when we should perhaps

question the association to state institutions rather than noble factions. For now, ongoing

horizontal excavations of known royal estates will contribute to developing material expectations

of imperial facilities versus estates.

The Cuzco region’s imperial facilities pertain to state institutions staffed by officials or

Inca elites that represent the interests of the currently ruling faction and the greater body of

Cuzco-Inca nobles. They were constructed and made to benefit the larger Cuzco elite society.

6

Thus, in the heartland, imperial centers are defined as parallel to provincial administrative

centers. However, it is important to note that provincial administrative centers cannot be used as

models for the material expectations for heartland sites. Heartland centers serve significantly

different functions, as there is no need for a single monumental nucleus to pull dispersed

tributaries in and gather resources during periodic assemblies far from subjects’ homes. In

Cuzco, there are many of these sites built nearer to each other, and they serve more specialized

than generalist purposes. Further, there are greatly variable forms of provincial administrative

centers due to distinctions in local conditions and strategies of Inca rule. Therefore, establishing

a single model is untenable.

Highland provincial centers were designed to promote interregional and intraregional

exchange, and to foster local social and ideological cohesion. These goals were often met by

intensifying agricultural production potential by relocating populations to productive areas.

Wealth goods were also produced via resettlement of craft specialists (D’Altroy Chapter 3.1;

Gyarmati and Condarco Chapter 2.2).. In the Cuzco region, these same functions were enacted at

both royal estates and imperial installations, but at a reduced scale. These took the form of

dispersed settlement systems rather than nucleated centers, and with fewer types of specialized

monumental architecture. Imperial facilities in the heartland incorporate some central organizing

features that foster gathering of imperial subjects from local communities, such as plazas (Morris

and Covey 2003). However, they are greatly reduced in scale compared to provincial centers.

For example the centers in Cuzco do not include facilities for the acllacona, or hundreds of

storage structures. Instead, most Cuzco region storehouses fall within royal estate claims (Covey

et al. 2016), while those sites we classify as imperial installations do not feature storage of a

scale equivalent to provincial administrative towns (LeVine 1992).

7

In the last four decades, Cuzco has been subject to widespread systematic pedestrian

surveys, including 2500 km2. This has resulted in the identification of at least 1700 Inca-era sites

(Bauer 1992, 2004; Covey 2006, 2014a; Kosiba 2010). In conjunction with a growing body of

excavations, surveys identify the locations of the largest and most significant sites around rural

Cuzco, and move beyond the myopia of the grandest and most impressive structures remaining

on the surface. Surveys from regions north and northwest of Cuzco (Covey 2014a, Kosiba 2010)

demonstrate that royal estate lands are more ubiquitous around the Urubamba Valley, Chinchero,

and Maras, while the Xaquixaguana Valley comparatively lacks in estate resources. Possible

imperial centers include way-stations (tambo) found in the Xaquixaguana Valley, such as

Tambokancha-Tumibamba and Tambo Real (Vaca de Castro 1908 [1543]:442). They run along

the royal highway leading to Chinchaysuyu (Covey 2014b; Farrington and Zapata 2003). Larger

sites with Inca remains that are not related to the highway, but that correspond to ideologically-

relevant landscapes, include those identified in the Cusichaca region near Machu Picchu

(Kendall 1994). South of Cuzco, palaces of the later rulers are found at Tipón and Kañaracay or

Muina, whereas imperial centers include the Quispicancha way-station (Vaca de Castro 1908

[1543]:430, 440) and the administrative-ceremonial site of Maukallaqta (Bauer 1987, 1989).

Where royal estates are not clustered, imperial installations are found. Both types of sites

are near (1) the most productive tracts, (2) important byways traveling between ecozones, and (3)

in the in-between spaces linking Cuzco to its provinces. Estates tend to be found around the

agriculturally productive areas, and imperial centers tend to be located in these linking spaces,

serving as satellites between Cuzco and provinces. Two types of imperial centers that are not

mutually exclusive are way-stations, and sites with Inca architecture built around landscapes and

locations that were sacred and relevant to the imperial origin narrative. Some tambo were even

8

related to royal estate claims, including Tambokancha-Tumibamba (Tupa Inca Yupanqui). It was

also part of the Xaquixaguana shrine system (Bauer and Barrionuevo 1998).

Sacred landscapes were co-opted and re-formulated into imperial centers, such as the

monumental site of Maukallaqta, Paruro (Bauer 1992). Though not near a major highway,

Maukallaqta administered nearby tributaries and demarcated geographic linkages to the

Pacarictambo origin story (Urton 1990). It consists of over 200 structures on a planned grid and

features a modest central plaza with triple-jamb niches and fine stonework (Bauer 1987-89). A

series of minor courtyards organize smaller structures that Bauer interprets as chambers related

to activities around the Inca origin myth (1987-89:209-11). Like Cuzco’s other imperial centers,

Maukallaqta lacks major storage structures and large plazas, but it provided a place for nearby

ethnic groups to gather and participate in intimate ritual activities (Bauer 1992:116, 120). These

celebrations would in fact serve an administrative and integrative purpose for the empire:

bringing people together to honor and become part of the myths legitimizing their ruling elite.

<1>Debating the Role of Royal Estates in the Heartland

There were functional commonalities between imperial centers and royal estates that

went beyond the nominal distinction of who laid claim – nobles to royal estates or officials and

the ruling group to imperial facilities. Over time, the presence and imposition of both grew,

particularly as royal estate parcels and palaces in rural Cuzco developed to fill in uninhabited or

underutilized spaces. Beyond economic functions, royal estates incorporated architecture and

spatial references to Inca origin stories and ideology, as at Pisaq (Kaulicke 2015). In sum, the

purposes of royal estates and imperial centers in the heartland were twofold: (1) to make visible

the successes of the Inca in conquering the region and integrating it socially and economically

into Cuzco valley society, and (2) to consolidate that power to ensure continued compliance with

9

Inca tribute obligations and labor tasks, and to re-order the wild and underutilized resources of

the area to serve the priorities of Inca ideology.

The royal estates supported the ruler and his faction economically, politically, and

ideologically. Estates were maintained by nobles and a cohort of commoners (the retainers in the

noble household) to feed the deceased ruler’s remains and ensure that he could continue to

interact with other deceased rulers through drinking, dancing, and consorting (Pizarro 1891

[1571]:476-77). However, there is an overall concern among Inca scholars for the economic

functions of the estate as it relates to dividing private and noble economies versus the public,

non-factional economy of the larger Cuzco nobility. These interpretations fall into two blocs –

those who emphasize that the estate was developed at the expense of the larger empire, and those

who underscore estate contributions to the imperial project. In the former lies an assumption that

factional noble interests are disconnected from greater Inca society (LaLone 1994). Split

inheritance, in which a successor earned their own wealth while the predecessor ruler’s wealth

transferred to the rest of the lineage, is often the explanation for royal estate expansion at the

expense of the empire (Conrad and Demarest 1984). According to this interpretation, a struggle

between generations ensued, in which legitimacy was proven and personal wealth was acquired

at the loss of other factions. Prime parcels were redirected to private holdings and the command

of human labor was conveyed to private interests (D’Altroy 1994). Furthermore, this interpretive

tradition sees the development of royal estates as reactionary to previous generations, wherein

the establishment of a new estate served to erase the previous pattern of noble land use, rather

than to augment it or contribute to corporate objectives (Sherbondy 1996).

On the other hand, some scholars model the estate as a necessary contributor to imperial

development and de-emphasize the costs. In the most benign interpretations, each successive

10

generation constructed the estate as visual reference to the new political order (Niles 2004:50). In

another configuration, the estate system was necessary for converting Cuzco’s rich agricultural

(staple) economy into wealth economy, in order to minimize the risk of provinces becoming too

wealthy (Covey 2006). Provincial specialists (both mitmacona and yanacona) could be

relocated to Cuzco to locally produce, and the noble descent groups were responsible for their

supervision and care as they served the surplus-oriented goals of the landed estate (Covey 2011).

Royal estates seized upon sacred landscapes and the idiom of kinship to promote imperial

ideologies, while serving economic means and improving the stability of the heartland overall.

Even at the cost of increasing factional divisions. Yet some recent scholars have reacted to the

economic focus, and view estates exclusively as the materialization of Inca cosmology. They

argue that our models are too entrenched in Western formalist explanations (e.g., Reinhard 2007,

Wilkinson 2013). Royal lineages were inalienably linked to sacred spaces on the landscape in

and around Cuzco (Bauer 1998). However, the ritual elements of the estate were not their

exclusive purpose, and should not be the focus at the expense of other interpretations. Scholars

do not ignore the sacred dimensions of estates, but the archaeological and ethnohistorical records

offer much more empirical support for understanding how the estate supported and

complemented the imperial economy from within the heartland.

There is less understanding of the impacts on people’s lives on the estate. Rowe has

argued that retainer laborers (yanacona) serving the Cuzco nobility enjoyed an elevated status, as

the result of an imperial project that promoted allegiance and integration (Rowe 1982).

Yanacona are rarely referred to as “slaves,” although they resemble a form of slavery as

hereditary-status permanent retainers in service to a noble house in an alien land (Rowe

1982:100). Outside the walls of the estate palaces’ monumental cores, resided thousands of

11

laborers who contributed to farming, salt mining, weaving, and more. Stonecutting and masonry

specialists helped to build Ollantaytambo from the Kachiqhata quarry, while Machu Picchu’s

metal specialists alloyed, cast, and forged tin bronze personal adornments (Rutledge and Gordon

1987). Cheqoq’s pottery specialists manufactured polychrome imperial pottery for noble

consumption (Quave 2012). Estates were more than just a setting for leisure (Niles 1987-89) –

they were nuclei of wealth production for the noble lineage, and a place where laborers found

new ways of communicating status and identity vis-à-vis imperial symbolism.

<2>Machu Picchu: A Royal Estate Seen From Within the Palace

Machu Picchu has been more intensively studied than any other estate in the Cuzco

region due to an enduring regard as a mysterious place of inexplicable engineering achievement

(Figure 2.1.3). It is one of several royal estate holdings pertaining to Pachacuti’s royal ayllu,

including Ollantaytambo and Pisaq (Rowe 1997). Macu Picchu is often perceived as the center

of a sacred landscape with architectural elements oriented toward astronomical observations

(Dearborn and White 1983), and with water sources linked to shrines (Reinhard 2007).

[Insert Quave- Figure 2.1.3 here]

The palace of Machu Picchu included architectural sectors devoted to religious and

sacred activities, irrigated agricultural production (Wright and Valencia 2000), housing for 500-

750 nobles and servants (Salazar 2004: 30), and a central plaza. While Bingham’s team

recovered a multitude of decorated jars for storing and serving maize beer and many forms of

decorated culinary vessels in tombs (1930), the most salient objects of the central plazas were

maize beer jars used in ritual activities and celebrations (Bingham 1930:178-79). During recent

excavations, archaeologists found areas of limited access with the remains of a private garden of

orchids and edible crops, as well as a royal bath and latrine (Salazar 2004:31-32).

12

Bioarchaeological studies of Machu Picchu retainers illuminate the origins and lives of

those who lived and worked for the nobility, opening up history beyond the “lifestyles of the rich

and famous” (Salazar and Burger 2004). Turner and colleagues have found through oxygen, lead,

and strontium stable isotope analysis of Machu Picchu skeletons that most individuals spent their

early childhood in foreign places, including the coast and other highland regions (2009). This

migration history is probably typical for retainers, though there are not yet similar results from

other estate sites.

Research at Machu Picchu provides an example a royal estate viewed from within the

palace walls. In contrast, a site primarily populated by retainers rather than nobles is Cheqoq, one

of many parcels corresponding to the royal lineage of Huayna Capac. Importantly, Cheqoq is

also a site where multiple spheres of economic production are evident in the archaeological

record. Observing beyond the palace walls is essential to responding to debates on the purpose of

the estate, and how it altered or contributed to imperial growth within and outside of the Cuzco

region.

<1>Cheqoq and Huayna Capac’s Royal Estate: Beyond the Palace Walls

Huayna Capac’s descent group managed his estate based at Yucay and the Quispiwanka,

which included the area from Huayoccari to just below Urubamba and part of Maras. Much of

the information about the estate comes from the 16th-century lawsuit of Beatriz Clara Coya,

great-granddaughter of Huayna Capac, and 18th-century documents pertaining to noble descent

claims (Covey and Amado 2008; Farrington 1995; Rostworowski de Díez Canseco 1962).

Interspersed among Huayna Capac’s Yucay lands were parcels dedicated to various family

members and his father, according to the Inca nobility and valley residents interviewed in the

1550s (Villanueva 1970:31-54).

13

Early in Huayna Capac’s reign, 150,000 provincial laborers (mitmacona) were

temporarily resettled to canalize the river and to create irrigated maize lands (Betanzos 1996

[1557]:170). Subsequently, at least 2,000 permanent retainer labors (yanacona) (Villanueva

1970: 40) came from the Cuzco region, including ethnic groups of distant provinces like

Quichuas, Collas, Chancas, Xaquixaguanas, Yauyos and Cañaris (Covey and Elson 2007).

Twenty-one of the yanacona claimed by Beatriz Clara Coya resided in the San Francisco de

Maras reducción in 1572, which incorporated surrounding groups such as Ayllus Checoc

[Cheqoq] and Sañu (Archivo Departamental del Cusco, Urubamba. Leg. 1. 1594-1595). Ayllu

Checoc was also part of the Marquisate of Oropesa and Ayllu Loyolas, which resulted from the

estate inheritance of Beatriz Clara Coya, claimant to Huayna Capac’s legacy (R. Alan Covey,

personal communication 2011). Sañukamayuq is the Quechua term for pottery production

specialist, and members of ayllus Checoc and Sañu may have resided at the archaeological site of

Cheqoq.

The regional archaeological record complements this archival view of who lived and

worked on Huayna Capac’s estate. In Late Intermediate Period Maras (henceforth LIP, ~AD

1000-1400), Covey found a hierarchical pattern of undefended settlements within a one-hour

walk of the 35-ha central site of Yunkaray (2014c:113). This and other sites with LIP pottery

lacked Killke and Inca remains, and were abandoned in the Inca period. They were replaced with

a new settlement pattern congruent with the ethnohistoric record of royal estate development

(Covey 2014b).

Cheqoq is the largest site identified in the aftermath of this shift and represents one of

Cuzco’s largest Inca villages (22 ha). Our 2009-10 excavations (with René Pilco Vargas and

Stephanie Pierce Terry) found eight hectares of storage structures (Guevara 2004), and fourteen

14

hectares of domestic terraces that include camelid corrals and an imperial-style pottery

production locus (Figure 2.1.4).

[Insert Quave- Figure 2.1.4 here]

<2>Estate Functions and Status at Cheqoq

Archaeological excavations of domestic terraces, a storage structure, and a pottery

production locus at Cheqoq addressed staple and wealth production. They allowed us to assess

(1) retainers’ contributions to the noble lineage’s reputation and wealth, (2) whether attachment

to nobles elevated the livelihood of new retainer communities, (3) retainers’ promotion of their

own status, (4) how retainers cast themselves as participants in Inca society through consumption

of Cuzco-Inca material goods, and (5) how retainers articulated with the greater economy (Quave

2012).

Farming, camelid herding, hunting, and storage (Figure 2.1.5) were considered in relation

to the subsistence economies of the Cheqoq retainers. Through historic sources, we find that

permanent retainers and resettled laborers provided for their own subsistence via usufruct rights

to parcels of their noble patrons’ productive lands (Betanzos 1996 [1557]:120; LaLone and

LaLone 1987:55; Wachtel 1982: 201). Four of six households yielded agricultural tools, perhaps

indicating uneven contribution to crop farming activities.

[Insert Quave- Figure 2.1.5 here]

Camelid herding likely took place at Cheqoq, as evidenced by remains of large corrals.

We expect that if herds were managed by and for Cheqoq residents, the faunal assemblage would

yield a variety of camelid ages (as households were able to choose the animals for slaughter on

their own), and even distribution of high-yield elements of meat (as they would not receive

solely the undesirable parts of the animal). Cheqoq reveals a relatively old age-at-death profile

15

across the site (there were not statistically significant differences in age profiles by household:

G=6.829, df=4, p=.145). Camelids were slaughtered once past their usefulness for carrying loads

and yielding fiber. This pattern is also found at other non-elite Inca sites (Flores 1982:69-70), but

not at provincial administrative centers where imperial representatives may have provided high-

quality meat for feasting events (D’Altroy et al. 2007:117). Meat yield of skeletal elements

recovered in Cheqoq households were also evenly distributed across the site, indicating equal

access and relatively equal status when considering diet (G=10.353, df=8, p=0.241). Thus, there

was not complete autonomy over herd management, but there was equal access.

We did not expect hunting to be widespread among Cheqoq’s inhabitants, as elites

enjoyed exclusive access to hunting preserves (Cieza de León 1864 [1553]:288) and Cheqoq’s

inhabitants herded camelids. There were uneven and minor contributions to the faunal

assemblage from deer, viscacha, and Muscovy duck. Possible hunting tools (projectile points and

a slingstone) appeared in four households.

Storage practices provide another line of evidence for examining economic functions and

status on the estate. Archival documents describe how products cultivated in the lower Yucay

valley were brought by order to storehouse complexes near Chinchero (Rostworowski de Díez

Canseco 1970:83, Villanueva 1970:50). Cheqoq may have served as one of those locations for

storing staple goods from the valley, as storehouses yielded remains of maize, tubers,

quinoa/kiwicha, legumes, verbena, and muña (the latter two are herbs possibly used as

condiments). However, not all of these foods were identified in studied Cheqoq households.

There was uneven access to basic foodstuffs such as maize, indicating that not all households

could actually access the crops they cared for by supervising the storage complex just below the

domestic sector. However, when comparing dietary remains to Inca-style wealth goods in those

16

same houses, there are no clear status distinctions between them. We do not find that the houses

with the greater frequencies of high-value personal items or Inca-style serving vessels are also

the best provisioned in terms of maize and other Inca foods (see Hastorf 2003 on Inca foods).

The Inca ceramic production locus at Cheqoq represents the only securely identified

imperial Inca pottery workshop in the Cuzco region. It was moderately controlled by the noble

lineage, who ensured that fidelity to the Inca imperial canon was kept (Figure 2.1.6). Production

occurred in a nucleated area with restricted access, which was identified by comparison with

other Andean pottery production contexts. Excavation of the terrace revealed an open firing pit,

ash deposits and lenses, burnt and vitrified clay, raw clay, polishing stones and bones, a potter’s

plate, and a variety of other tools and byproducts. Cheqoq has ample evidence of raw materials,

manufacturing facilities and tools, and by products (Hayashida 1999:341), while most

researchers maintain that at least two out of the three of these categories must be present for in

situ production. Inca style sherds made up 99.8% of the diagnostic assemblage, as only imperial

pottery was produced. However, domestic terraces were replete with both Cuzco Inca and non-

Inca styles. A small portion of the imperial pottery was brought into houses from the workshop,

and the majority of domestic serving vessels were in the imperial style. These Cuzco-Inca goods

were given by noble overseers in exchange for services and loyalty or as a mark of belonging to

a royal household. More importantly, retainers chose to use them.

[Insert Quave- Figure 2.1.6 here]

The daily lives and subsistence practices of estate laborers at Cheqoq provide insight into

the organization of production and the material elements of status in the heartland. These craft

specialists shared in the work of herding, farming, managing storage, and producing ceramics,

although they did not always have access to the fruits of their labors. If households were

17

responsible for their own subsistence production, in addition to craft production and storage

administration, they may have experienced a number of scheduling challenges (D’Altroy 1994:

190-91). This situation would make life more arduous, and diminish the potentially elevated

status we hypothesize that retainers may have enjoyed by association with the royal estate. The

ceramic production locus shows that, just as Inca style pottery was an important political tool in

the provinces, so it was in the heartland, where noble lineages maintained control over this social

and political currency by creating a decentralized craft economy in rural Cuzco. Imperial centers

and royal estates played a major economic role in shaping Inca imperial growth. They also

contributed social and economic diversity in the heartland, which was managed through efforts

on behalf of the nobility to Incan-ize the population (giving access to goods or, alternatively,

allowing local populations to illegitimately gain access on their own).

<1>Consolidating the Heartland through Estates and State Facilities

Royal estates and imperial centers were the organizing settlements of the Cuzco region.

At imperial centers, neighboring valleys and native populations became subject communities.

Toward the later Inca imperial period, imperial centers were particularly effective in creating

linkages between the heartland and the provinces, especially at way-stations carrying people and

goods to and from the capital. At the royal estates, the nobility re-located resources to factions by

developing underutilized and uninhabited lands, or the territories of resettled groups. This may or

may not have contributed to overall imperial growth, but it certainly provided an institution for

bringing provincial groups into the heartland and forging yet another social and economic

linkage. Continued problem-based, horizontal excavations will contribute to fleshing out these

models for the roles played by estates and centers in Cuzco.

18

Households at Cheqoq give insight into the process of consolidating communities into the

empire in rural Cuzco. Life as a perpetual estate servant at Cheqoq was not one of oppression

and did not resemble slavery. Retainers had access to imperial-style serving assemblages,

probably from the site’s workshop. They enjoyed some autonomy in their subsistence

production, and at ate as well as their neighbors, though they may not have consumed the same

crops they managed in the storehouses. Furthermore, contrary to Rowe’s assertion that retainer

status served to integrate the empire culturally (1982), Cheqoq indicates that perhaps a non-Inca

identity was maintained in some households after re-settlement in Maras; the process of

assimilation to Inca cultural identity was still in progress on the estate.

The estate promoted the interests of noble factions, who in turn underwrote the growth of

the empire. Development came from within the heartland, where intensification of agropastoral

resources, control over wealth production, and injection of newly settled retainer communities

drove dramatic changes. Royal descent groups transformed agricultural resources into wealth

goods, which traveled between the provinces and the center to be redistributed by the nobility.

Cuzco’s nobles solved the problem of financing political and economic interests in the heartland

by bringing in new subordinate populations and providing them with lands, herds, and the means

by which to elevate their status. Together with the imperial centers that represented institutional

power in Cuzco, the royal estates served to organize people, resources, and sacred landscapes in

new ways to ensure the stability of the imperial core.

19

Bibliography

Bauer, Brian S. 1987-1989. “Recent Archaeological Investigations at the sites of Maukallaqta

and Puma Orco, Department of Cuzco, Peru.” Ñawpa Pacha 25-27:207-250.

———. 1992. The Development of the Inca State. Austin: University of Texas Press.

———. 2004. Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin: University of Texas.

Bauer, Brian S. and Barrionuevo Orosco, Wilton. 1998. “Reconstructing Andean Shrine

Systems: A Test Case from the Xaquixaguana (Anta) Region of Cusco, Peru.” Andean

Past 5:73-87.

Betanzos, Juan de. 1996 [1557]. Narrative of the Incas. Translated by R. Hamilton and D.

Buchanan. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bingham, Hiram. 1930. Machu Picchu: A Citadel of the Incas. Report of the Explorations and

Excavations made in 1911, 1912, and 1915 under the Auspices of Yale University and the

National Geographic Society. New Haven: Memoirs of the National Geographic Society.

Cieza de León, Pedro de. 1864 [1553]. The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de León Contained in the

First Part of his Chronicle of Peru. Translated by C. Markham. New York: Burt

Franklin.

Conrad, Geoffrey W. and Arthur A. Demarest. 1984. Religion and Empire: The dynamics of

Aztec and Inca expansionism. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Covey, R. Alan. 2003. “A processual study of Inka state formation.” Journal of Anthropological

Archaeology 22 (4):333-357.

———. 2006. How the Incas built their heartland: state formation and the innovation of

imperial strategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

20

———. 2011. “Landscapes and Languages of Power in the Inca Imperial Heartland (Cuzco,

Peru).” The SAA Archaeological Record 11 (4):29-32.

Covey, R. Alan (ed). 2014a. Regional Archaeology in the Inca Heartland: The Hanan Cuzco

Surveys. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology.

———. 2014b. “Local Populations, Royal Lineages, and State Entities in the Inca Occupation of

the Xaquixaguana Plain.” In Regional Archaeology in the Inca Heartland: The Hanan

Cuzco Surveys, edited by R.A. Covey, 153-174. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan

Museum of Anthropology.

———. 2014c. “Late Intermediate Period Archaeology and Inca Rivals on the Xaquixaguana

Plain.” In Regional Archaeology in the Inca Heartland: The Hanan Cuzco Surveys,

edited by R.A. Covey, 111-128. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of

Anthropology.

Covey, R. Alan and Donato Amado González. 2008. Imperial Transformations in Sixteenth-

Century Yucay, Peru. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology.

Covey, R. Alan and Christina M. Elson. 2007. “Ethnicity, Demography, and Estate Management

in Sixteenth-Century Yucay.” Ethnohistory 54 (2):303-335.

Covey, R. Alan, Kylie E. Quave and Catherine E. Covey. 2016. “Inca Storage Systems in the

Imperial Heartland (Cuzco, Peru): Risk Management, Economic Growth, and Political

Economy.” In Storage and Administration in Ancient Complex Societies, edited by L.R.

Manzanilla and M.S. Rothman, 167-188. New York:Routhledge

D'Altroy, Terence N. 1994. “Public and Private Economy in the Inka Empire.” In Economic

Anthropology of the State, edited by E. M. Brumfiel. New York: Lanham.

D'Altroy, Terence N. 2015. The Incas. Second Edition. Malden: Wiley Blackwell.

21

D'Altroy, Terence N., Verónica I. Williams and Ana María Lorandi. 2007. The Inkas in the

Southlands. In Variations in the Expression of Inka Power, edited by R.L. Burger, C.

Morris and R. Matos, 85-134. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and

Collection.

Dearborn, David S.P. and Raymond E. White. 1983. “The "Torreón" at Machu Picchu as an

observatory.” Archaeoastronomy 5:37-49.

DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Luis Jaime Castillo and Timothy K. Earle. 1996. Ideology,

Materialization, and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology 37 (1):15-86.

Farrington, Ian S. 1995. The Mummy, Palace and Estate of Inka Huayna Capac at Quispeguanca.

Tawantinsuyu 1:55-65.

Farrington, Ian S. 2013. Cusco: Urbanism and Archaeology in the Inka World. Gainesville:

University Press of Florida.

Farrington, Ian S. and Julinho Zapata. 2003. “Nuevos cánones de arquitectura inka:

investigaciones en el sitio de Tambokancha-Tumibamba, Jaquijahuana, Cuzco.” Boletín

de Arqueología PUCP 7:57-77.

Flores Ochoa, Jorge A. 1982. “Causas que originaron la actual distribución espacial de las

alpacas y llamas.” In El Hombre y su Ambiente en los Andes Centrales, edited by L.

Millones and H. Tomoeda, 63-92. Osaka, Japan: National Museum of Ethnology.

Guevara Carazas, Luis. 2004. Informe Final de Investigación Arqueológica 2004: Conjunto

Arqueológico Qolqas de Cheqoq-Maras. Cusco: Instituto Nacional de Cultura.

Hastorf, Christine A. 2003. “Andean luxury foods: special food for the ancestors, deities and the

élite.” Antiquity 77:545-554.

22

Hayashida, Frances. 1999. “Style, Technology, and State Production: Inka Pottery Manufacture

in the Leche Valley, Peru.” Latin American Antiquity 10 (4):337-352.

Helms, Mary W. 1993. Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade, and Power. Austin: University of

Texas.

Jamieson, Ross W. 2003. De Tomebamba a Cuenca: Arquitectura y Arqueología Colonial.

Quito, Ecuador: Ediciones Abya-Yala.

Kaulicke, Peter. 2015. “Inka Conceptions of Life, Death, and Ancestor Worship.” In The Inka

Empire: A Multidisciplinary Approach, edited Izumi Shimada, 274-261. Austin:

University of Texas Press.

Kendall, Ann. 1994. Proyecto Arqueológico Cusichaca, Cusco: Investigaciones arqueológicas y

de rehabilitación agrícola (Tomo I). Lima: Southern Peru Copper Corporation.

Kosiba, Steven B. 2010. Becoming Inka: The transformation of political place and practice

during Inka state formation (Cusco, Peru), Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of

Anthropology, University of Chicago.

LaLone, Mary B. and Darrell E. LaLone. 1987. “The Inka State in the Southern Highlands: State

Administrative and Production Enclaves.” Ethnohistory 34 (1):47-62.

Levillier, Roberto. 1940. Don Francisco de Toledo, Supremo Organizador del Peru: Su Vida, Su

Obra (1515-1582), Tomo II: Sus Informaciones sobre los Incas. Buenos Aires: Espasa-

Calpe, S.A.

LeVine, Terry Y., ed. 1992. Inka Storage Systems. Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Mann, Michael. 1984. “The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and

Results.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 25:185-213.

23

Morris, Craig and R. Alan Covey. 2003. “La plaza central de Huánuco Pampa: espacio y

transformación.” Boletín de Arqueología PUCP 7 (133-150).

Niles, Susan A. 1999. The Shape of Inca History: Narrative and Architecture in an Andean

Empire. Iowa City: University of Iowa.

Niles, Susan A. 2004. “The nature of Inca royal estates.” In Machu Picchu: Unveiling the

Mystery of the Incas, edited by R.L. Burger and L.C. Salazar, 49-68. New Haven: Yale

University Press.

Pizarro, Pedro. 1891 [1571]. “Relación del descubrimiento y conquista del Perú.” In Biblioteca

Peruana, Primera Serie, Tomo I, 439-586. Lima: Editores Técnicos Asociados.

Quave, Kylie E. 2012. Labor and Domestic Economy on the Royal Estate in the Inka Imperial

Heartland (Maras, Cuzco, Peru), Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Anthropology.

Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

Reinhard, Johan. 2007. Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center. Fourth Revised ed.

Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California.

Rostworowski de Díez Canseco, Maria. 1962. “Nuevos Datos sobre Tenencia de Tierras Reales

en el Incario.” Revista del Museo Nacional 31:130-164.

———. 1970. “El repartimiento de Doña Beatriz Coya en el Valle de Yucay.” Historia y

Cultura 4:153-267.

Rowe, John H. 1982. “Inca Policies and Institutions Relating to the Cultural Unification of the

Empire.” In The Inca and Aztec States, 1400-1800, edited by G.A. Collier, R. Rosaldo

and J.D. Wirth, 93-118. New York: Academic Press.

24

———. 1997. “Las tierras reales de los Incas.” In Arqueología, antropología e historia en los

Andes: homenaje a María Rostworowski, edited by R. Varón, J. Flores and M.

Rostworowski. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

Rutledge, John W. and Robert B. Gordon. 1987. “The Work of Metallurgical Artificers at Machu

Picchu, Peru.” American Antiquity 52 (3):578-594.

Salazar, Lucy C. 2004. “Machu Picchu: Mysterious Royal Estate in the Cloud Forest.” In Machu

Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas, edited by R.L. Burger and L.C. Salazar, 21-

47. New Haven: Yale University.

Salazar, Lucy C. and Richard L. Burger. 2004. “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous: Luxury

and Daily Life in the Households of Machu Picchu's Elite.” In Palaces of the Ancient

New World, edited by S. T. Evans and J. Pillsbury, 325-357. Washington, D.C.:

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Schortman, Edward M. and Patricia A. Urban. 2004. “Modeling the Roles of Craft Production in

Ancient Political Economies.” Journal of Archaeological Research 12 (2):185-226.

Turner, Bethany L., George D. Kamenov, John D. Kingston and George J. Armelagos. 2009.

“Insights into immigration and social class at Machu Picchu, Peru based on oxygen,

strontium, and lead isotopic analysis.” Journal of Archaeological Science 36:317-332.

Urton, Gary. 1990. The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Inkas. Austin:

University of Texas Press.

Vaca de Castro, Cristóbal. 1908 [1543]. “Ordenanzas de tambos, distancias de unos a otros,

modo de cargar los indios y obligaciones de las justicias respectivas.” Revista Histórica

del Perú, 3 (4):427-492.

25

Villanueva Urteaga, Horacio. 1970. “Documentos sobre Yucay, siglo XVI.” Revista del Archivo

Histórico del Cuzco 13:1-148.

Wachtel, Nathan. 1982. “The Mitimas of the Cochabamba Valley: The Colonization Policy of

Huayna Capac.” In The Inca and Aztec States, 1400-1800, edited by G.A. Collier, R.

Rosaldo and J.D. Wirth. New York: Academic Press.

Wilkinson, Darryl. 2013. Politics, infrastructure and non-human subjects: The Inka occupation

of the Amaybamba cloud forests, Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Anthropology,

Columbia University, New York.

Wright, Kenneth R. and Alfredo Valencia Zegarra. 2000. Machu Picchu: A Civil Engineering

Marvel. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers.

26

Abstract

This multiscalar view of royal estates and imperial centers in the Cuzco region looks to survey

data, ethnohistory, and site-based archaeology to illuminate the growth of the Inca empire from

its heartland. Monumental centers in Cuzco are just a fraction of the settlements and resources

that make up the estate systems and imperial facilities. By casting a wide net beyond the palace

walls of sites such as Machu Picchu, the role played by these centers that dominated the

heartland landscape outside urban Cuzco is modeled in new ways. Recent results from the estate

economic installation at Cheqoq (Maras), including retainer laborer households, a pottery

workshop, and storage facilities, demonstrate (1) the impacts of Inca development on local

communities, (2) how retainers contributed to factional interests and the greater imperial project,

and (3) how retainers enjoyed an elevated status as a result of attachment to the nobles who

developed royal estates.

Keywords

Imperial development, royal estates, palaces, factionalism, Inca nobility, retainers, pottery

workshop

27

List of Figures

[Quave-Figure 2.1.1]: Map of royal estates and imperial centers in the rural Cuzco region.

[Quave-Figure 2.1.2]: One of the first beyond the Cuzco Basin, Viracocha’s palace Huchuy

Qosqo can be seen in the foreground. The Urubamba Valley beyond was the site of major

landscape transformations in the late Inca period.

[Quave-Figure 2.1.3]: The monumental core of Machu Picchu, as seen from Huayna Picchu.

[Quave-Figure 2.1.4]: Map of the organization of Cheqoq and locations of excavation units.

[Quave-Figure 2.1.5]: Reconstructed storehouses at the royal estate installation of Cheqoq.

[Quave-Figure 2.1.6]: Examples of Cuzco-Inca pottery sherds and wasters recovered at Cheqoq,

which illustrate fidelity to the Inca imperial canon.