PARIA, THE SOUTHERN INKA CAPITAL REDISCOVERED

Abstract

Early historical sources mention Paria as one of the most important provincial settlements in the Inka State.Being such an important settlement, the first Spanish village in southern part of former Tawantinsuyu, was decided to establish in Paria.The foundation was ordered by Diego Almagro in 1535.Nevertheless, it has been somewhat of mystery for archaeologists how faraway the Spaniards moved the new foundation from the original Paria, so admired by the Inkas, because no Inka artifacts have been found in the Colonial foundation.In many occasions John V. Murra also wondered about the location of the original Paria.In 1960 Hermann Trimborn had identified old Paria, Paria la Vieja, as a place situated some distance towards the north of the present Paria.Nevertheless, John Hyslop put forward the idea that Paria was the same as Anocariri, situated to the west-northwest of the present Paria.Some Inka researchers accepted Hyslop's identification, but also doubts have been presented.Quite recently the team of Carola Condarco Castellón returned to Trimborn's idea and inspected the area belonging to the village of Pulupampa, situated to northwest of Obrajes and actually found there a settlement with Inka ceramics.This is why they reported that "Paria la India" or "Paria la Vieja" was found.Nevertheless, they did not inform either marks of huge administrative compounds or any concentration of silos.In 2004 we decided to visit Paria in order to make an independent identification of the exact site of the Inka southern capital using archival sources and our archaeological experiences in these kinds of multidisciplinary enterprises.As a result, we may conclude that the earlier identification of Paria la Vieja, as proposed by Trimborn and the team of Carola Condarco, is correct.Comparing to the archaeological evidence of Anocariri site, proposed to be Paria la Vieja by John Hyslop, our site is three times bigger (35 ha vs 100 ha).Furthermore, the ceramic assemblage of our site in Pulupampa is predominantly composed of the Inka and the Regional Inka varieties unlike Anocariri, and finally, new evidence published in this report demonstrates that our site is the only one that has a huge concentration of storehouses.We were able to identify quite exactly 1,000 silos and various foundations of huge administrative buildings.

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