Incarraqay

Incarraqay stands above Sipe Sipe in Bolivia's Cochabamba valley. Its elevated plateau overlooks the agricultural lands and storage hills below. Under Inca rule it served as an administrative centre within a landscape of state fields, settlements and storehouses. Its stone buildings included wall niches, while a paved road climbed from Sipe Sipe toward the complex. Sections of this steep approach had rock-cut steps and stone edging, connecting the high site with the cultivated valley.

The Inca transformation of Cochabamba involved both the displacement of existing inhabitants and the arrival of mitimaes, communities resettled to cultivate imperial lands. Maize production and storage made the valley important to the wider state. After the Spanish conquest, colonial estates drew on parts of this inherited agricultural organisation and redirected labour into new relationships of dependence. Across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, disputes over these lands involved Spaniards and Indigenous communities, as well as competing Indigenous claimants.

The later city of Cochabamba lies nearby.