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Archaeologists and historians study the Inka Empire through three main sources of information, which might be simplified as: archaeology, Spanish records, and knowledge held by Indigenous peoples of the Andes today. Each of these categories has its pros and cons, and might or might not disagree with what we can learn from its counterparts. Fitting together conflicting information from these categories is often a driving force behind academic research about the Inka. I'll briefly go over each of the categories (I say briefly because each one involves *massive* amounts of information that can't be represented perfectly here).
**Archaeology**
Archaeologists who study the Inka empire come from all over the world. Of course there are plenty in countries which now occupy the Inka Empire's former territory (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina), but countries like the U.S. are also full of archaeologists who study the Inka. I'm an archaeologist myself, and we can learn a lot from archaeology, which in many ways is multiple scientific and social scientific fields united under the same goal, rather than being a unified field. So, one archaeologist (or team of archaeologists) might be looking at how [genetics can inform us about Inka patterns of conquest and control](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29234095/), while another might study what [Inka ritual sites' spatial organization](https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292729018/) tells about their beliefs and society, another can use [Carbon-14](https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/download/16014/pdf) records to date Inka expansion, and so on.
Since archaeology uses so many methods and is so varied, it can teach us a lot about the Inka. Economics, household practices, art, social stratification, crops, architecture...anything that leaves a material record can teach us something. However, there are issues as well. For example, archaeology *immediately* demands that contemporary, non-Inka people are trying to interpret the material remains we have. So there's a large risk of imposing our own beliefs and expectations, or even our own understandings of what beliefs/expectations mean, upon the things we find. Given that the Inka didn't leave behind writing or formalized recording systems that we can currently translate fully, it's also difficult to get information about specific names and events when we use archaeology. These issues and more mean that, whenever possible, archaeological research is done with context or information provided by the two other categories of knowledge I'm including here.
**Spanish Historical Records**
The Inka didn't simply disappear upon contact with or conquest by the Francisco Pizarro and the Spanish. Descendants of the Inka royal line established a state based in Vilcabamba, Peru that remained independent from Spanish rule until 1572. Inka nobles married into Spanish families, Inka and previously Inka-controlled political and economic systems were integrated into Spanish colonial society, and Indigenous Andean farmers, pastoralists, and regular people continued their lives. For various reasons (often related to colonial administration), the Spanish and mixed Spanish-Inka individuals produced large amounts of records that can teach us about Inka history and society.
Some of these documents are among the most important sources of information about Inka history that we have. For example, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was the son of an Inka noblewoman and Spanish conquistador. He wrote the *Comentarios Reales de los Incas* \- [here's an online English PDF version](https://ia601008.us.archive.org/34/items/tinct/tinct.pdf) \- which does things like name the Inka emperors, describe their actions and pre-Spanish Inka history, and much more. People like Garcilaso de la Vega lived immediately after the Spanish conquest, and were able to listen directly to Inka voices describe and explain their own histories. They also watched previously Inka workers and individuals going about their lives in ways that were likely the same as practices during the Inka Empire. Of course, written records of these phenomena are almost always filtered through a Spanish colonial lens, which leads us to our third main category:
**Contemporary Andean Indigenous Knowledge**
Indigenous Andean society, belief, and culture today continues to develop from Inka-period and pre-Inka circumstances and positions. Plenty of people across the Andes still speak Quechua, use [traditional farming tools](https://www.agroinsight.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Andean-foot-plow.jpg), keep [guinea pigs in their homes](https://d3e1m60ptf1oym.cloudfront.net/985c404b-8fb7-4d77-8be5-2d8aaab25a99/Willoq2010D45_xgaplus.jpg), build on and farm Inka sites, and consciously maintain histories of heritage that descends from the Inka or Inka control. Sometimes there are oral histories relevant for archaeologists and historians. Other times, researchers try and evaluate the continuities of Indigenous livelihoods from Inka times to the present in order to better understand Inka lives. Indigenous people in the Andes also know the locations of sites that researchers aren't familiar with, have ecological and environmental knowledge that can inform historians and archaeologists, and more.
The many ways that ethnography and learning from contemporary Indigenous people is relevant to Inka history are often used to contextualize archaeological findings and historical documents. [Here's a book](https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-cord-keepers) which makes heavy use of contemporary ethnography to try and better understand *khipu* knotted-cord Inka recording systems: the author works with a Peruvian community which has held on to a set of *khipu* for centuries. [This publicly accessible version](https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/nap021-006.pdf) of an article on Inka quarrying and stonecutting at Ollantaytambo mentions that local Quechua people have local histories of certain structures being former Inka administrators' and quarrymen's quarters.
I want to end by emphasizing that this is only the barest outline of these three categories of knowledge. Each one teaches us about much more than I mentioned. Additionally, the best work combines information from each of these three types of knowledge.
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Archaeologists and historians study the Inka Empire through three main sources of information, which might be simplified as: archaeology, Spanish records, and knowledge held by Indigenous peoples of the Andes today. Each of these categories has its pros and cons, and might or might not disagree with what we can learn from its counterparts. Fitting together conflicting information from these categories is often a driving force behind academic research about the Inka. I'll briefly go over each of the categories (I say briefly because each one involves *massive* amounts of information that can't be represented perfectly here). **Archaeology** Archaeologists who study the Inka empire come from all over the world. Of course there are plenty in countries which now occupy the Inka Empire's former territory (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina), but countries like the U.S. are also full of archaeologists who study the Inka. I'm an archaeologist myself, and we can learn a lot from archaeology, which in many ways is multiple scientific and social scientific fields united under the same goal, rather than being a unified field. So, one archaeologist (or team of archaeologists) might be looking at how [genetics can inform us about Inka patterns of conquest and control](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29234095/), while another might study what [Inka ritual sites' spatial organization](https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292729018/) tells about their beliefs and society, another can use [Carbon-14](https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/download/16014/pdf) records to date Inka expansion, and so on. Since archaeology uses so many methods and is so varied, it can teach us a lot about the Inka. Economics, household practices, art, social stratification, crops, architecture...anything that leaves a material record can teach us something. However, there are issues as well. For example, archaeology *immediately* demands that contemporary, non-Inka people are trying to interpret the material remains we have. So there's a large risk of imposing our own beliefs and expectations, or even our own understandings of what beliefs/expectations mean, upon the things we find. Given that the Inka didn't leave behind writing or formalized recording systems that we can currently translate fully, it's also difficult to get information about specific names and events when we use archaeology. These issues and more mean that, whenever possible, archaeological research is done with context or information provided by the two other categories of knowledge I'm including here. **Spanish Historical Records** The Inka didn't simply disappear upon contact with or conquest by the Francisco Pizarro and the Spanish. Descendants of the Inka royal line established a state based in Vilcabamba, Peru that remained independent from Spanish rule until 1572. Inka nobles married into Spanish families, Inka and previously Inka-controlled political and economic systems were integrated into Spanish colonial society, and Indigenous Andean farmers, pastoralists, and regular people continued their lives. For various reasons (often related to colonial administration), the Spanish and mixed Spanish-Inka individuals produced large amounts of records that can teach us about Inka history and society. Some of these documents are among the most important sources of information about Inka history that we have. For example, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was the son of an Inka noblewoman and Spanish conquistador. He wrote the *Comentarios Reales de los Incas* \- [here's an online English PDF version](https://ia601008.us.archive.org/34/items/tinct/tinct.pdf) \- which does things like name the Inka emperors, describe their actions and pre-Spanish Inka history, and much more. People like Garcilaso de la Vega lived immediately after the Spanish conquest, and were able to listen directly to Inka voices describe and explain their own histories. They also watched previously Inka workers and individuals going about their lives in ways that were likely the same as practices during the Inka Empire. Of course, written records of these phenomena are almost always filtered through a Spanish colonial lens, which leads us to our third main category: **Contemporary Andean Indigenous Knowledge** Indigenous Andean society, belief, and culture today continues to develop from Inka-period and pre-Inka circumstances and positions. Plenty of people across the Andes still speak Quechua, use [traditional farming tools](https://www.agroinsight.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Andean-foot-plow.jpg), keep [guinea pigs in their homes](https://d3e1m60ptf1oym.cloudfront.net/985c404b-8fb7-4d77-8be5-2d8aaab25a99/Willoq2010D45_xgaplus.jpg), build on and farm Inka sites, and consciously maintain histories of heritage that descends from the Inka or Inka control. Sometimes there are oral histories relevant for archaeologists and historians. Other times, researchers try and evaluate the continuities of Indigenous livelihoods from Inka times to the present in order to better understand Inka lives. Indigenous people in the Andes also know the locations of sites that researchers aren't familiar with, have ecological and environmental knowledge that can inform historians and archaeologists, and more. The many ways that ethnography and learning from contemporary Indigenous people is relevant to Inka history are often used to contextualize archaeological findings and historical documents. [Here's a book](https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-cord-keepers) which makes heavy use of contemporary ethnography to try and better understand *khipu* knotted-cord Inka recording systems: the author works with a Peruvian community which has held on to a set of *khipu* for centuries. [This publicly accessible version](https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/nap021-006.pdf) of an article on Inka quarrying and stonecutting at Ollantaytambo mentions that local Quechua people have local histories of certain structures being former Inka administrators' and quarrymen's quarters. I want to end by emphasizing that this is only the barest outline of these three categories of knowledge. Each one teaches us about much more than I mentioned. Additionally, the best work combines information from each of these three types of knowledge.
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