Ontological Foundations for Inka Archaeology

Understanding distinctively Inka (and southern Quechua) ways of interacting with the world requires integrated social, cultural, linguistic, cognitive, and material evidence. These include properties of the world (“what there is”), causal relationships among them (for example, that places have social agency); and spatial orientation. Each of these follow general principles-- embodied in language, cognition, social relations, and material culture—that are interconnectioned, some mutually compatible, and others incompatible, which warrant certain social and material outcomes and not others. These in turn can be tested archaeologically.