A public dissertation presentation

Ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts for the Andes describe "vertical economies" involving diverse production strategies and risk buffering through the exploitation of closely spaced but varied environments at different elevations. The northern Andes of Colombia do not provide as much altitudinal variation as the central Andes, but systems of "microverticality" have been proposed as vital components of chiefly political economy during prehispanic times. Spanish colonial accounts describe such a system for the Valle de Tena, a steeply descending zone adjacent to Muisca chiefdoms in the high-elevation Sabana de Bogotá. Archaeologically documented settlement patterns, however, are quite different from those expected from a microverticality model.