Moving Beyond Indirect Rule: Inca-Chincha Joint Rule at Las Huacas, Chincha Valley

This talk will address new research on Inca expansion into the coastal Chincha Valley of Peru (AD1474-1532). Many researchers have cited Chincha as a classic case of indirect rule, but current research, and research conducted by the Pisco-Chincha project in the 80s, has demonstrated that it more accurately understood as joint rule. Due to the density of sites and rich ethnohistorical information, the Chincha Valley has attracted attention from ethnohistorians and archaeologists alike throughout the years. The majority of this research has focused on costal sites due to the Chincha Kingdom’s involvement in prestigious long distance maritime trade, but in order to understand how the specialist economy of the Chincha polity functioned in the Late Horizon, the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológico Las Huacas has targeted excavations at the inland agricultural center of Las Huacas. I will present research from excavations and an architectural analysis of Las Huacas, and discuss plans for further excavations at Las Huacas in order to understand the administration of the site and the contributions that it made to the Chincha and Inca economies. I will develop this research alongside other models of Inca Imperial expansion that address the relationship between the expressions of Inca power and the institutions that supported them.