Machu Picchu Elite Employed Yanacona

A recent research based on the bone remains of ancient Inca people points to the differences between them, indicating that they belonged to a large number of people brought in by the Incan elite to perform the chores that would eventually make Machu Picchu and the Inca civilization thrive. The permanent workers, called yanacona, were coming from the southern Pacific coast, from northern mountains and from the Titicaca region, at the Bolivia-Peru border.

 

The study can prove how the tribute paid in labor determined the social layers of the Inca civilization. The observations were made based on analysis of the ratio of oxygen, strontium and lead isotopes in the tooth layers of 74 skeletons, which appear between the ages of 3 and 4. The results were then compared with evidence of food and water, both local and from the rest of the empire, in order to determine whether people were natives or immigrants. Early results showed “widely different backgrounds in where [the people] lived and what their diets were,” according to Bethany Turner, a Georgia State University anthropologist.

 

Yanacona had to leave their homes and families behind for good, and live in the Machu Picchu capital, should they have been needed for immediate task completion. They also got rid of their former rulers, and were attracted by the honor and gifts that the Machu Picchu elite bestowed on them, such as clothing, food or farmland. Their skeletal remains show no sign of hard labor or mistreatment, which made archaeologists conclude that they were rather performing tasks like defense, agriculture, administration or maintenance.

 

According to the opinion of Guillermo Cock, an Andean expert from Lima who didn't participate in the research, “The yanacona […] gave them direct access to labor, making it a much more efficient system. Without the work of yanacona, the Inca state would never have developed. Their work was the foundation of Inca productivity.”