Interpreting Conflict in the Ancient Andes

This article critically assesses recent interpretations of premodern defensive architecture and militaristic themes in the archaeological record, using the Andes as a case study. While archaeologists have proposed intriguing alternative hypotheses that call into question the existence of war in the past, much evidence for conflict has been incautiously dismissed. This stance has seriously skewed our understanding of the development of premodern societies. It is suggested here that because archaeologists underutilize ethnographic and historical evidence, the architecture of premodern defenses is poorly understood and many arguments used to dismiss military interpretations are incorrect. These misperceptions are addressed with empirical observations based upon known analogies from ethnography and history. The problematic dichotomy of ritual battle and real war is discussed, and the article concludes with a reassessment of the evidence for warfare in a few controversial Andean contexts in terms of more reliable material criteria for recognizing the existence of war and peace in the archaeological record.