from the Coricancha and connected at least 328 shrines (huacas). Ceque surveys
found that named sacred places corresponded to hills, palaces, temples, fields,
tombs, ravines, caves, quarries, worked stones, and more. Offerings were made
to these shrines as important locales for Inca origins and relevant sites for
particular lineages. The dedicated fields and herds that were needed to provision
the ritual practitioners who maintained the ceque system fomented the
transformation of Cuzco’s countryside.
As the Incas developed their state and expanded to form Tahuantinsuyu, the
heartland changed dramatically. New styles of pottery and architecture helped to
create a visible imperial identity that was exported to the provinces, while
provincial migrants were resettled into the imperial core to support the growing
economic demands of a thriving heartland. Archaeological studies help to
identify the timing and nature of these transitions and to pinpoint the differences
among urban, suburban, and rural areas of Cuzco. The Incas faced a diversity of
local responses to their expansion, which produced a heterogeneous heartland
marked by increasingly dense populations, agricultural intensification, an
obvious accumulation of surplus, investment in royal estates, and a complex and
integrated sacred landscape tied to imperial origins.
Further Reading
Andrushko, Valerie A., Michele R. Buzon, Antonio Simonetti, and Robert A. Creaser. “Strontium Isotope
Evidence for Prehistoric Migration at Chokepukio, Valley of Cuzco, Peru.” Latin American Antiquity 20,
no. 1: 57–75, 2009.
Bauer, Brian S. Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.
Covey, R. Alan. 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, 2006.
Farrington, Ian S. Cusco: Urbanism and Archaeology in the Inka World. Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 2013.
Rowe, John H. “An Introduction to the Archaeology of Cuzco.” In Papers of the Peabody Museum of
Anthropology and Ethnology 27, no. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1944.
■KYLIE E. QUAVE
ARCHITECTURE
From masterfully fitted stone masonry to dramatic mountaintop settings, Inca
architecture has captivated popular and scholarly imaginations for centuries. Its
ability to impress is not an accident but a result of imperial intentions. The state
carefully controlled the design, construction, and use of architecture so that the
built environment could serve as a critical tool in Inca conquest strategies. The
Incas created a unified vision of their empire by spreading their distinctive
architecture (and artifacts) throughout the lands they had conquered. This