Pre-Colombian History


Organized chronologically by publication date.

Latest


El Ecuador en la Historia: Jorge Nunez

El Ecuador en la Historia, by Jorge Nunez Sanchez, is a survey of national history from the pre-Columbian period to the modern nation-state, focusing more heavily on the twentieth century. The book sheds light on early indigenous protests of colonial rule, labor organization, and liberal reforms in the early twentieth century, as well as the…

Late Pre-Hispanic Chiefdoms of Highland Ecuador: Bray

Bray, Tamara L. “Late Pre-Hispanic Chiefdoms of Highland Ecuador.” In The Handbook of South American Archaeology, 527–44. New York: Springer, 2008. Tamara Bray contributed this chapter to The Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William Isbell, surveying the three major socio-political regions of the early Ecuadorian Andes: the Caranqui, Puruha, and…

With Broadax and Firebrand: Warren Dean

Warren Dean’s With Broadax and Firebrand is a history of the destructive impact of human activity on the Atlantic forests of Brazil. Chronicling social attitudes towards nature and the impact of those attitudes on the forests from pre-Columbian times to the present, he highlights the ultimately unproductive exploitation of Brazilian natural resources, which left the…

A Plague of Sheep: Elinor Melville

Elinor Melville’s A Plague of Sheep (1994) examines the effects of sheep ranching on the environment in the Valle de Mezquital in colonial Mexico. Melville traces the processes that turned a wooded, well-irrigated landscape into desolate pasture lands. She weaves disease, territorial control, ungulate irruptions, and the collapse and consolidation of regional land tenancy into…

Archaeological Survey in Northern Highland Ecuador: Inca Imperialism and the País Caranqui: Bray

Bray, Tamara L. “Archaeological Survey in Northern Highland Ecuador: Inca Imperialism and the País Caranqui.” World Archaeology 24, no. 2 (October 1992): 218–33. Tamara Bray’s “Archaeological Survey in Northern Highland Ecuador: Inca Imperialism and the País Caranqui” documents the presence of local and Incan influences in the Guayllabamba basin, an area that represented the Incas’…

Native Lords of Quito in the Age of the Incas: Frank Salomon

Frank Salomon’s Native Lords of Quito in the Age of the Incas (1985) is still the most complete ethnohistory of the Ecuadorian Andes in English. Making extensive use of indigenous legal documents from the early colonial period, Salomon focuses on what is today the city of Quito and the Los Chillos valley, as well as…

The Andean Past: Magnus Mörner

Magnus Mörner’s The Andean Past: Land, Societies, and Conflicts (1985) is a wide-ranging survey of Andean history since conquest, focusing on classic political, social, and economic themes. In his discussion of Andean rural history, Mörner says historians should view the development of haciendas in terms of their wider commercial networks and argues that international export…

Conquest and Agrarian Change: Robert Keith

Robert Keith’s 1976 Conquest and Agrarian Change: The Emergence of the Hacienda System on the Peruvian Coast, explored the rise of Spanish plantations in seven valleys along Peru’s southern coast in the second half of the sixteenth century. Keith emphasized the legacy of pre-Colombian societies in the development of the hacienda, arguing that in addition…

Economic Organization of the Inka State: John Murra

John Murra developed his now-famous theory of the Andean “vertical archipelago” in Formaciones Económicas y Políticas del Mundo Andino (1975, trans. Economic Organization of the Inka State, 1980), which grew out of his research in the Peruvian highlands between 1958 and 1973. Murra argued that pre-Columbian societies in the Andes sought to control a range of ecological zones…