Vertical archipelago

The vertical archipelago is a term coined by sociologist and anthropologist John Victor Murra under the influence of economist Karl Polanyi to describe the native Andean agricultural economic model of accessing and distributing resources.

Aside from certain cultures, particularly in the arid northwest coast of Peru and northern Andes, pre-colonial Andean civilizations did not have strong traditions of market-based trade.

In the Andes, a long mountain range with a great variety of ecozones and resources, the need to access the proper lands for specific crops or animals meant lineages created miniature colonies or sent seasonal migration (such as transhumance) in different ecoregions.

The corvée labor force was used for military operations as well as public works projects, such as roads, aqueducts, and storage buildings known as tampu and qollqa.

Indeed, it has been widely suggested that the terraces at Moray were testing grounds for determining which crops would grow under what conditions in order to more efficiently exploit ecozones.

Photo of a metallic object shaped as an axe-head. It has brown irregular surface and rests on a black plate.
Axe-monies from Ecuador (10th-14th century).
Photo of a large pit in the mountain seen from above. A round pit is surrounded by 7 levels of terraces. The terrace extends onto a flat area and there are further 6 levels of terraces around. A series of 9 terraces rises further in the background. The terraces are covered with short grass. The surrounded area is covered with darker wild bushes.
The terraces of Moray.