Anthropological enquiry has seen an increased tendency towards attempts to understand how individuals or groups acquire and maintain their social positions, and on the role that ideology played in this process (i.e. Brumfiel 2006; Earle 1997; Shennan 1982; Spriggs 1988; Van Buren and Richards 2000). The interplay among ideology, economy and politics, and the resultant development of social hierarchy, is of particular relevance in the study of ancient Andean societies, where an intertwined relationship among these processes has been recognised by many archaeological and ethnohistoric works (Bauer and Stanish 2001; Bawden 2004; Bermann 1997; De Leonardis and Lau 2004; Gose 1996; Janusek 2004; Lopez-Hurtado and Nesbitt 2010; MacCormack 1991; Millones 1990; Salomon 1991, 1995; Salomon and Urioste 1991; Shimada et al. 2004a; Sillar 1992; Silverman 1994b). This close relationship between material and intangible factors in the emergence and function of complex societies has been addressed from various perspectives. For some scholars, success in the acquisition and maintenance of social hierarchy rested mainly in the elite’s coercive control over key economic resources (Earle 1987: 294-296; Earle and D’Altroy 1989: 188), the labour force, land, agricultural production and specialised craft production (Blanton et al. 1996; Brumfiel and Earle 1987a, b; Costin and Earle 1989; Earle 1987, 2001; Gilman 1987, 1991, 2001; Spencer 1993; Welch 1996). From this perspective, the development of belief systems becomes the consequence of more mundane economic processes, with the role of ideology being to legitimate extant political and economic stratification. In short, elite-sponsored ritual activities-the production and acquisition of prestige goods and the construction of temples-became possible as a consequence of successful surplus extraction from non-elites (Gilman 1987, 1991; Lucero 2003: 524). Even though ideological control also constituted a critical advantage over other competing elite groups, its efficacy as a source of social power was derived from the control of the economic means necessary to materialise it (DeMarrais et al. 1996; Van Buren and Richards 2000: 3).