Food and Labour under Imperial Rule

Unravelling the Food Landscape of Transplanted Workers (mitmaqkuna) in the Inka Empire

Bibliographic Data

ID6044265
AuthorsDi Hu (0000-0001-9516-3707, James Madison University, corresponding author), Víctor Félix Vásquez Sánchez (0000-0003-4777-9237, National University of Trujillo), Teresa Esperanza Rosales Tham (0000-0003-2555-6032, National University of Trujillo), Katherine L Chiou (0000-0003-0160-8037, University of Alabama), Rob Q Cuthrell (University of California, Berkeley), Rob Cuthrell, Kylie E Quave (0000-0003-3337-6306, George Washington University)
Year2025
Volume35
Issue1
Pages207-226
Publication date2025-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0959774324000258
OpenAlexW4404331904
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited55

The Inka empire's expansion incorporated diverse cultural and ecological elements in microcosmic representations of their empire. Imperial practices included the resettlement of communities from various regions into labour enclaves near Inka ceremonial, administrative and economic hubs. This degree of imperial control might suggest a limitation on Inka subjects’ freedom to integrate non-local food resources into their diets. Employing starch grain analysis from stone tools, we seek to identify the range of plant food sources and examine the extent to which the Inka imposed constraints on inter-community interactions and the exchange of comestibles. Focusing on a translocated labour force residing near the Inka provincial centre of Vilcashuamán, our findings reveal the consumption of a variety of edible plants originating from multiple, occasionally distant, ecological regions. The results indicate that, in contrast to the restrictions on trade of other commodities as recorded in ethnohistorical accounts and previous archaeological research, the exchange of edible plant species among the subjugated peoples may have been less regulated. This study demonstrates how food landscapes potentially served as loci of resistance to the Inka empire's manipulative cosmopolitanism

Archaeology · Economics · Economy · Empire · Ethnology · Geography · Social science · Sociology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access