Inka Empire A Multidisciplinary Approach, The

Massive yet elegantly executed masonry architecture and andenes agricultural terraces set against majestic and seemingly boundless Andean landscapes roads built in defiance of rugged terrains and fine textiles with orderly geometric designsall were created within the largest political system in the ancient New World a system headed paradoxically by a single small minority group without wheeled vehicles markets or a writing system the Inka For some 130 years ca AD 1400 to 1533 the Inka ruled over at least eightysix ethnic groups in an empire that encompassed about 2 million square kilometers from the northernmost region of the Ecuador Colombia border to northwest Argentina The Inka Empire brings together leading international scholars from many complementary disciplines including human genetics linguistics textile and architectural studies ethnohistory and archaeology to present a stateoftheart holistic and indepth vision of the Inkas The contributors provide the latest data and understandings of the political demographic and linguistic evolution of the Inkas from the formative era prior to their political ascendancy to their postconquest transformation The scholars also offer an updated vision of the unity diversity and essence of the material organizational and symbolicideological features of the Inka Empire As a whole The Inka Empire demonstrates the necessity and value of a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates the insights of fields beyond archaeology and ethnohistory And with essays by scholars from seven countries it reflects the cosmopolitanism that has characterized Inka studies ever since its beginnings in the nineteenth century