Agriculture and the onset of political inequality before the Inka

Archaeologists have long been interested in the onset of political differentiation, and how this can be inferred from the archaeological record, and they have proposed a variety of different models to account for it. In this ambitious and innovative book, Christine Hastorf looks at the nature of power and political differentiation in the Andean region of central Peru over a thousand-year period, from AD 200 until the Inka conquest in the fifteenth century. Hastorf argues that no one model or theory can usefully explain all social change, and that archaeologists should instead focus on a particular region and seek to understand the context of change and why it occurred. She looks at political inequality from a number of different perspectives, collecting material from many sources, and suggests a series of 'cultural' principles that shaped political developments. She also traces changes in agricultural production within the region, which she considers were fundamental to its social and political evolution. Aside from its innovative theoretical approach to the nature and origin of political inequality, Archaeology and the onset of political inequality before the Inka is a substantive study of prehistoric agricultural systems. Hastorf's comprehensive and sophisticated methodology for studying prehistorical agriculture - based on the analysis of modern and prehistoric plant remains - should be followed widely.