Vertical archipelago  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump
to: navigation, search  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, pre-colonial Andean civilizations did
not have strong traditions of market-based trade. Like
Mesoamerican pochteca traders, there was a trading class known
as mindaláes in these northern coastal societies.[1] A system of
barter known as trueque is also known to have existed in these
coastal societies as a means of exchanging goods and food stuffs
between farmers and fisherman.[2] A simple currency, known to
archaeologists as axe-monies, were also present in the area (as
well as western Mesoamerica).[3] By contrast, most highland
Andean societies, such as the Quechua and Aymara, were organized
into moietal line