The Cultural Setting

Conclusion

UMARP’s research focused on an integrated set of questions concerning the daily life of an agrarian populace under autonomous and imperial dominion. The research concentrated on consumption, production, and exchange at the household level, during successive eras of volatile politics. In Wanka II, the last pre-Inka century, households functioned within a setting of intense local competition but modest sociopolitical differentiation. Under the Inkas, the situation changed to one of relative regional peace but marked political hierarchy. In most of the remainder of this volume, the authors examine how the domestic economy developed and then was transformed in conjunction with these broader social contexts.