The Inka empire's expansion incorporated diverse cultural and ecological elements in microcosmic representations of their empire. Imperial practices included the resettlement of communities from various regions into labour enclaves near Inka ceremonial, administrative and economic hubs. This degree of imperial control might suggest a limitation on Inka subjects’ freedom to integrate non-local food resources into their diets. Employing starch grain analysis from stone tools, we seek to identify the range of plant food sources and examine the extent to which the Inka imposed constraints on inter-community interactions and the exchange of comestibles. Focusing on a translocated labour force residing near the Inka provincial centre of Vilcashuamán, our findings reveal the consumption of a variety of edible plants originating from multiple, occasionally distant, ecological regions. The results indicate that, in contrast to the restrictions on trade of other commodities as recorded in ethnohistorical accounts and previous archaeological research, the exchange of edible plant species among the subjugated peoples may have been less regulated. This study demonstrates how food landscapes potentially served as loci of resistance to the Inka empire's manipulative cosmopolitanism.

中文翻译：

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帝国统治下的食品和劳动：揭开印加帝国移植工人 （mitmaqkuna） 的食品景观


印加帝国的扩张将不同的文化和生态元素融入了他们帝国的缩影中。帝国的做法包括将来自不同地区的社区重新安置到印加仪式、行政和经济中心附近的劳动飞地中。这种程度的帝国控制可能表明印加臣民将非本地食物资源纳入其饮食中的自由受到限制。利用石器的淀粉粒分析，我们试图确定植物食物来源的范围，并研究印加人在多大程度上限制了社区间的互动和可食用的交换。我们的研究结果侧重于居住在 Vilcashuamán 省中心 Inka 省中心附近的迁移劳动力，揭示了来自多个（有时是遥远的）生态区域的各种可食用植物的消费。结果表明，与民族历史记载和以前的考古研究中记录的其他商品贸易限制相比，被征服民族之间可食用植物物种的交换可能受到较少的监管。这项研究展示了食物景观如何潜在地成为抵抗印加帝国操纵性世界主义的场所。