Symbolic responses to the Inca Empire: inter-regional variability in rock art at the southern edge of the empire

ZÁRATE, SOL; PUERTO MUNDT, SEBASTIÁN; MARSH, ERIK J.

Valcamonica

Congreso; 20th International Rock Art Congress IFRAO; 2018

The Inca Empire extended south along the Andes to the high-altitude deserts of the Argentine provinces of San Juan and Mendoza and central and semi-arid north regions of Chile in South America. Previous research in these four regions has tracked the presence of Inca conquest and cultural influence through ceramicsand architecture, but paid less attention to rock art. The authors show mapsdisplaying the spatial distribution of Inca sites and rock art motifs assigned to the same period. Within the four regions, Inca-period motifs are diverse and include shields, knives, and anthropomorphic designs with ponchos. The authors assess diverse criteria used to assign these motifs to the Inca period and their stylisticrelationships to Inca ceramics, architecture, and ethnohistoric documents from other regions. There is a comparison of these rock art motifs and other closelyassociated motifs. Maps rank the regions? spatial density of sites and motifs as general indicators of the relative intensity of the influence of the Inca Empire. The paper suggests that inter-regional differences in rock art motifs reflect internal variability in Inca conquest strategies and local responses.