PAZ Y GUERRA EN LA SIERRA NORTE DEL ECUADOR: LAS PODEROSAS CULTURAS DE LA INTEGRACIÓN TARDÍA

Abstract

Arriving in northern Ecuador as early as 1460, it may have been well after 1500 before the final conquest of the northern highlands was assured. In the process of conquest and reconquest, the Inka suffered substantial losses. Though the losses were in part due to poor Inka tactics, the growing power of the northern Ecuadorian polities over the centuries before the Inka advance suggests that the Inka would have struggled against the highly organized northerners in any scenario. Here we trace the visible archaeological remnants of the northerners’ power, the massive and extensive ramped mounds and the enormous areas of raised fields, both of which required substantial human effort and a stable sociopolitical organization for their development. Analyses of the archaeological remains suggests that few cultures of the high Andes had such powerful underpinnings as the norther highlanders.