Heritage Week 

Wednesday Jun, 10th 2026

Roundtable: 14:00 – 15:30

Guided tour Museum BASA: 15:30 – 16:00

Registration 

In the fertile valleys of Cochabamba, Bolivia, the Inka Empire reshaped the land, its people and its food systems on an extraordinary scale. This project explores how imperial strategies of resettlement, agricultural intensification and food storage transformed the landscape, and how these processes have left a lasting legacy. Cochabamba itself is the result of migration: thousands of mitimaes, relocated from across the empire, brought with them agricultural knowledge, languages, and social practices that continue to influence the region's cultural identity.

Using archaeology, ethnohistory, linguistics and environmental data, the project reconstructs the landscapes of production, movement and memory. As part of Heritage Week at the University of Bonn, project participants Olga Gabelmann, Karoline Noack, Bruna Pellegrini, and Alexis Pierrard will discuss the research in a roundtable conversation, fostering dialogue across disciplines on heritage, power, and sustainability.

The event will conclude with a guided tour of the exhibition “Landscapes in transformation: the Cochabamba Valley beyond the Inkas” / “Paisajes en transformación: el valle de Cochabamba más allá de los inkas” at the Bonner Amerika-Sammlung (BASA), where archaeological artefacts and stories breathe life into these Inka heritage landscapes, inviting visitors to experience heritage as living, layered histories embedded in land and memory, not just as objects.