The tropical rainforest blanketing the eastern Andes is rich in resources that have attracted human interest. Vibrant bird-feathers, durable hard chonta wood, chilli peppers, cotton, and coca leaves are but a few of the commodities that were prized by the peoples populating the adjacent highlands. Of these groups, the Incas are known to have placed exploitation of certain exotic goods on a state footing. As far as they were concerned, coca was the single most-important commodity coming from the rainforest. Guaranteeing supply was complicated by the coca tree being intolerant to both frost and drought, so plantations were established in regions with a suitably benign climate to the east and north of Cuzco, the Inca capital. Underlining its interest in coca, the Inca state even established a monopoly over its production and distribution.
To the Incas, coca was a highly esteemed plant known as coca mama, or ‘mother coca’. Its significance was such that it played a part in every ritual celebration, while coca leaves were often placed as offerings at shrines and revered landmarks, such as mountains. People would also pack coca leaves into their mouths, and when the conquering Spaniards asked why, the reply came that it ‘prevents them from feeling hungry and gives them vigour and strength’. This feeling of well-being was not reserved for the living, and even the dead could be sent to their grave with coca leaves padding their mouths. But, despite this enthusiasm for rainforest produce, the Incas were not the first highlanders to develop an interest in its exotic resources, and new research is raising questions about how such commodities were first exploited on a large scale.
Research in the Apurímac Valley
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Scott Raymond of the University of Calgary in Canada carried out archaeological research along the lower Apurímac River of eastern Peru. This survey provided the first tantalising evidence for highland colonisers establishing rainforest outposts. All these intrusive sites were confined to the western margin of the Apurímac River, except for one at Palestina. Raymond noted that the highland outposts were found at elevations suitable for coca cultivation, thus strongly suggesting that the chief motive behind colonising the tropical lowlands was coca production. He also observed that the highland colonisation of the region occurred at the height of the expansion of a pre-Inca state known as Wari, which flourished c.600-1000 AD. The Wari state was centred on a sprawling capital city at Huari, in the Ayacucho Valley of the Peruvian central highlands. At its height, Wari influence expanded over much of modern Peru, during a period that is known to scholars as the Middle Horizon.
