Abstract

We believe that social interactions between core cultural areas, large scale political systems, and semi-peripheral, peripheral, and ultra-peripheral zones were more complex than previously thought, and that they cannot be described and explained by unidirectional and unilateral neo-evolutionary paradigms. Both ancient and modern Andean societies reveal great variability of social interactions, characterized by various social processes of negotiation, exchange and adoption, resistance, and tolerance between central and peripheral societies. Local societies also show much variability resulting primarily from locally derived developments and from the influence of a diversified ecosystem that presents certain difficulties of resource predictability and productivity.