Description
Book SynopsisIn Ancient People of the Andes, Michael A. Malpass describes the prehistory of western South America from initial colonization to the Spanish Conquest. All the major cultures of this region, from the Moche to the Inkas, receive thoughtful treatment, from their emergence to their demise or evolution. No South American culture that lived prior to the arrival of Europeans developed a writing system, making archaeology the only way we know about most of the prehispanic societies of the Andes. The earliest Spaniards on the continent provided first-person accounts of the latest of those societies, and, as descendants of the Inkas became literate, they too became a source of information. Both ethnohistory and archaeology have limitations in what they can tell us, but when we are able to use them together they are complementary ways to access knowledge of these fascinating cultures.
Malpass focuses on large anthropological themes: why people settled down into agricultural commu
Trade Review
The goal of discussing the ancient societies o the Central Andes or South America through theoretical debates is fulfilled... by Malpass.... Offers ample opportunities for students to navigate various interpretive possibilitiesafforded by the archaeological record, and it can be a very useful educationaltool in that sense.
* Latin American antiquity *
Table of Contents1 Learning about the Past
2 Geography of the Central and South Andes
3 The Time Before Temples: The Early and Middle Preceramic Periods
4 Settling Down and Settling In: The Late Preceramic Period
5 Societal Growth and Differentiation: The Initial Period
6 Of Masks and Monoliths: The Early Horizon
7 Art and Power: The Early Intermediate Period
8 Clash of the Titans? Tiwanaku, Wari, and the Middle Horizon
9 Auca Runa, the Epoch of Warfare: The Late Intermediate Period
10 Expansion and Empire: The Inkas and the Late Horizon
