HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL INTEGRATION: THE LOWER CLASS OF THE CHIMU EMPIRE (PREHISTORY, PERU, LATIN AMERICA, ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY, IMPERIALISM, POLITICAL)

The study examines how the Chimu Empire--a prehistoric polity of the North Coast of Peru--may have integrated lower class members of society into the imperial economy. The study presents the results of excavations in a barrio of cane structures of Manchan, the Chimu regional center located on the southern frontier of the Chimu Empire. Located in the coastal Casma Valley, Machan dates to the latter portion of the Late Intermediate Period, circa AD 1300 - 1470. The cane structures represent the residences of lower class members of Chimu society, contrasting with the adobe brick residential and public architecture found elsewhere at Manchan.;Archaeological data were used to assess state involvement in three areas: the organization of labor, patterns of production, and patterns of consumption. In sum, the evidence from the Manchan barrio suggest a pattern of household self-sufficiency and a low level of state involvement in the domestic economy.;This pattern is contrary to that found within the Chimu heartland of the Moche-Chicama Valley, where archaeological evidence indicates that the Chimu state had a direct and significant role of the economic system via the institutions of redistribution, surplus storage, and corvee labor. The findings from the Manchan barrio suggest that different patterns of political integration were used in different regions to link the household economy to the public economy of the Chimu Empire.;The focus of the barrio investigations has been the integration of the household economy into the state directed, public economy that is hypothesized for the Chimu Empire. Specifically, the study examines the level of direct state involvement in the domestic economy of the barrio households.