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Andean Archaeology I: Variations in Sociopolitical Organization by Helaine Silverman, William H. Isbell (Hardcover, 2002)

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By comparing evolutionary sequences from different world civilizations scholars can judge degrees of similarity and difference and then attempt explanation. The Central Andes were the locus of the only societies to achieve pristine civilization in the southern hemi sphere and only in the Central Andes did nonliterate (nonwritten language) civ ilization develop.

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The origins and development of civilization are vital components to the understanding of the cultural processes that create human societies. Comparing and contrasting the evolutionary sequences from different civilizations is one approach to discovering their unique development. One area for comparison is in the Central Andes where several societies remained in isolation without a written language. As a direct result, the only resource for understanding these societies is in their material artefacts. In this work, the focus is on what the material remains reveal about the sociopolitical structures of the Central Andes region. This focus on ancient identity politics adopts a perspective that explicitly interrogates the processes and strategies by which higher social groups acted as self-interested agents in the achievement and maintenance of differential status, including: symbols of power and their role in the construction of an elite identity; social legitimization and achievement of economic or material power; design of architecture for the display of power and exercise of social control; and promotion of labour-intensive agriculture for the purpose of surplus production and extraction.