Gimme That Old Time Religion: Rethinking the Role of Religion in the Emergence of Social Inequality

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Archaeology has been able to identify estates that began to be built before the Inka imperial expansion. When looking at evidence for palaces in Cusco, there are a lot of problems. Most architectual remains have been modifed, destroyeed, or rebuily, so it is hard to date them. There are administrative structures, open spaces, and architectual complexes during the Killke Period that can be seen in the Vilcanota Valley. Because of the sizes of the buildings and the layout, it is believed that these places were administrative complexes rather than residential. In the 14th century, as Vilcanota Valley became incorporated in the Inka state, is when Cusco ay have started to develop administrative and religious architecture, although more excavation is needed to really clarify this.

The geography of Cusco and its surroundings is also discussed in the article in terms of territorial control. The distribution of Killke pottery provides a measure of the extent of the Inka influence. There was Killke pottery present in the Vilcanote Valley, which suggests that there was some Inka influence there.

In the Cusco region, there are indicators of state formation present between A.D. 1200 and 1400. I thought it was interesting that Covey used "a comparative study of ethnohistoric cases of state formation to identify a series of social, political, economic, military, religious, and ideologial transformations occuring during the process of state formation." (P. 344) Using Spansih chronicles, he also attempts to identify, not the Inka ruler who founded a certain cetralized state, but rather to determine whether independent sources describe the establoshment of traits seen in other states over the course of several generations. Some of these chroncicles suggested that Inka establoshed ontrol over territory befoer the start of imperial expansion although there was no uniform control by the Inka state. There was also loss of local autonomy over a period of sevral generations. Urban growth under the Inkas was mentioned but not very specific. There were also changes made to the miliatry organization and to its development of military tactics. Other things that the chronicles talked about werethe development of a judicial system, the elites marrying as a way to form alliances, elite hierarchies, agricultural intensification, laws about control over exotic goods, religious festivals acting as a kind of calendar, and the transformation of the relgious system including establoshing a cult.

What the author found after looking at these two types of evidence was that the Inka state formation happened some time after A.D. 1000. From A.D. 1000 to 1200, the Inka united the Cusco Basins and the regions south of the Cusco Valley. This lead to marriage alliances, which lead to increasing the amount of land they had. This meant that there was a development in agriculture which leads to population growth. Using the people as forced labor the Inka rulers were able to build their own palaces and estates over time. The Inkas were able to make alliances with some groups and with others, they resisted, so those groups attacked for decades before being conquered. It was during the 15th and 16th century when new territoies became a part of the Inka imperial expansion.

I think it was interesting to see a study where chronicles were used and used in the way that the author did. This was my first time reading a study where chronicles were used. I do wonder how much merit it has and how much archaeologists believe it. And I was a bit surprised that no one has really ever paid attention to the processes by how the Inkas were able to expand and claim so much land in such a short amount of time. It was an interesting study and in the end, I felt like it was a good argument, because there will always be something missing in the archaeological record for everything and to take data and interpret them in a different way is brave and in a sense, I guess, doable and it may even change the way we viewed a society or empire.

A Dual-Processual Perspective on the Power and Inqueality in the Contemporary United States: Framing Political Economy for the Present and the Past by Gary M. Feinman

Dual-processual theory acknowledges the differences that early states had in obtaining power and inequality. There are two strategies in the dual-processsual theory. One strategy is the exclusionary strategy, when summed up is individuals following a netwrok strategy aimed to monopolizr sources of power, establishing small-scale networks of personal dominance. The other strategy is the corporate strategy, where power is shared across the social structure and the monopolozation of power is inhibited. The author claims that "The coporate or exclusionary modes or strategies are envisioned as two ends of a continuum of organizational strategies that can be seen in socieites that vary widely in both spatial scale and hierarchcal complexity." (P. 255) His focus is on comtemporary United States because it is a setting that is "data-rich and familiar to most of us, the recent history of the United States." (P. 256) By focusing on the United States, we are able to see the shifts in power and inequality that occured in a context where cultural and legal traditions have remained pretty much complete. In this paper, Feinman wants to review the dual-processual theory and then elaborate on the role that this theory has building a conceptual and theretical frame that fully accounts for the different paths that inequality is institutionalized and how it has manfested over time.

Feinman focuses on five key dimensions. The first is where he examines the balance of power or shifts in the ways that political power is divided or shared. Then he looks the strategies of legitimation, the importance of personal networks in getiing ppower, using power and maintaing power. The fourth dimension looks at the braoder economic basis of power. The fifth dimension looks at the shifts in distribution of wealth ans economic displays of increasing inequality.

For about 150 years in the United States, there was a slowshihfting of powers from the legislative to th executive branch. So there was a small but steady increase in presidential power over generations. In the past four decades, there has been a huge increase concentration of power in the presidency and executive branch. The author believes that the presidency has more power today than ever before and the powers are used more unilaterally. As far as legitimation goes, Feinman claims that, "The point here is that not only has there been a shift since mid-century in the dominant political rhetoric and strategies of legitimation, but that such changes may be reinforced by broaer societal trends in ideaological practice and behavior."