new light on andean tiwanaku

Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

New Light on Andean Tiwanaku: A detailed reconstruction of Tiwanaku's early commercialand religious empire illuminates the processes by which states evolveAuthor(s): David L. BrowmanSource: American Scientist, Vol. 69, No. 4 (July-August 1981), pp. 408-419Published by: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27850533 .

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David L. Browman New Light on Andean Tiwanaku

A detailed reconstruction of Tiwanaku's early commercial and religious empire illuminates the processes by which states evolve

The extensive ruins of the fifteen

hundred-year-old city of Tiwanaku, also known as Tiahuanaco, lie on the Bolivian altiplano, near the southern

edge of Lake Titicaca, at an elevation of 3,850 m (Fig. 1). The second of the three great Andean empires, standing between the Chavin and the Inca

civilizations, Tiwanaku was a

preeminent influence in both religion and commerce in the first millennium A.D., and indeed provided the cultural

patterns refurbished by the Inca conquerors centuries later.

Yet in some respects, the Tiwanaku

people have been seen as something of an enigma. Earlier cultural recon structions showed them suddenly appearing out of nowhere, controlling a substantial area of the Andes from the Ecuadorian border on the north to central Chile and northwestern

Argentina on the south, and just as

suddenly disappearing, thus paral leling the kind of abrupt appearance and disappearance once proposed for the Maya. New research reveals a

more reasonable cultural history, building on a variety of archaeological techniques: new excavations that

suggest a gradual, linear evolution of the Tiwanaku culture, as seen in the

continuity of such material traits as ceramics and architecture; archaeo

zoological and archaeobotanical

David L. Browman, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Washington University, re ceived his Ph.D. from Harvard University. A

specialist in Andean archaeology and ethno

history, he has conducted field research

projects in Peru and Bolivia. His current re search focuses on the historical aspects of small ruminant pastoralism in arid lands. Address: Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130.

studies of recovered traces of animal and plant specimens that help to outline subsistence patterns; trace element analyses useful in recon

structing trade routes; and recon structions of protolanguages that aid in the identification of original lan guage stock.

What was the basic subsistence pat tern of the earliest Tiwanaku people? At nearly 4,000 m, the city was sit uated above what we in the Northern

Hemisphere generally regard as ag ricultural lands. While tuber agri culture with secondary pastoralism based on husbandry of camelids?the llama and the alpaca?was well es tablished by Inca times and contin ued under the later Spanish conquest, how ancient is this pattern in the al

tiplano? Did the inhabitants of Ti wanaku represent the first agricul tural folk? Recent evidence suggests that the basic pattern of seed and tuber agriculture with supplementary camelid pastoralism was firmly es tablished in the Lake Titicaca basin

by at least the middle of the second millennium B.C.

The earliest domesticated species in the Andes were apparently not plants but animals?the guinea pig, the

llama, the alpaca, and the dog (Browman 1974; Wing 1978). Old

World scholars suggest that pasto ralism universally developed as a poor relation of agriculture, appearing in

marginal areas where former farmers

reluctantly turned to herding ani mals. In the Andes, the opposite may be true. Current evidence appears to

support the idea that the highlanders were pastoralists first, and that An dean plant cultivation developed in areas marginal to herding, where former herders turned to growing plants or where herding was imprac

ticable. If further work supports the

primacy of animal domestication, then present models of cultural evo lution will have to be modified.

Osteological evidence indicates the

beginning of extensive management of the Andean camelids by 7000 B.C.

(All dates are derived from uncor rected radiocarbon years; although they represent radiocarbon rather than sidereal time, for convenience

they are expressed as real A.D. or B.C. dates.) Shifts in culling and cropping patterns, in sex ratios, and in popu lation parameters are observed, suggesting a change from pr?dation or

hunting to management or herding. Throughout the central Andes the consolidation and integration of the

pastoral regime is well underway by 4000 B.C. In this early camelid herding the animals were important primarily as a source of meat. The reliance on llamas as a source of woolen goods and as a means of transporting bulky commodities between various groups of consumers, seen in modern pasto ral groups in this area, did not become

predominant until later.

While the transition from carnivorous

pastoralism to the modern mode should be easily identifiable in the faunal assemblages, we do not yet have the necessary record for the Ti ticaca basin to pinpoint the moment at which it occurred. In the light of other economic and social develop ments, I expect that we will ulti

mately identify the shift as taking place between the first and second millennia B.C. This change is partic ularly important, because it marks a

change in the social relations of pro duction that has important conse

quences for the later development of the Tiwanaku polity. Both the earlier

hunting of camelids and, to some ex

408 American Scientist, Volume 69



tent, carnivorous pastoralism placed an emphasis on maximizing sustained

yields and thus implicitly limiting herd size. By contrast, when wool and

transportation are the primary con sideration the strategy is one of

maximizing herd size and implicitly limiting caloric yields, since direct

consumption of the animals in effect entails the destruction of wealth (In

gold 1980).

In hunting societies, and to a lesser extent in carnivorous pastoralism, the

highest value is on sharing the kill. Men are motivated to produce by an ideal of generosity, and status is achieved through the prestige asso ciated with generosity. In carnivorous

pastoralism, the emphasis is basically on ownership of the dead animals. By contrast, when wool and transport become paramount the emphasis is on the live animals. Status and wealth are now based on the number of

transport animals an individual owns, the amount of wool produced, and the number of animals that can be loaned or given. An earlier ideal of generosity is replaced, one might argue, by an ideal of parsimony. To gain social and

political status, an individual must control a large number of animals.

Complex mechanisms evolve for

sharing labor, and shared labor re

places shared meat as the vehicle for social solidarity. A complete devel

opment of this thesis must be saved

for another occasion; the purpose of this summary is simply to point out that with the shift to a pastoralism based on wool and transport, we al

ready have an inherent shift toward

nonegalitarian accumulation of wealth and inherited hierarchical

stratification, as well as the practical means for amassing and transporting large quantities of material goods.

Shortly after 2000 B.C. further

changes appear in the archaeological record, among them the development of new technologies such as ceramics, the appearance of new architectural

techniques related to the establish ment of sedentary villages, and an

increasing reliance on a wide range of

N-N-V

-49

--dL -~ - ~ ~ ~_ 41,

Figure 1. Despite looting of stones by both the Inca and the Spaniards, the site of Tiwanaku contains a rich variety of architectural remains. In this view looking north toward Lake Titicaca and the low hills surrounding the valley site,

the outlines of the temple of Kalasasaya?one of a number of Tiwanaku temples and pala ces?are seen at the left. The structure at left center is the interior courtyard of the temple; the larger structure enclosing it is the temple

itself, which dates from the Tiwanaku IV, or

Classic Tiwanaku, Phase. At the right is an

earlier Tiwanaku III subterranean temple. At the center of each temple stands a monolith or

group of monoliths: (Photo by the author.)

1981 July-August 409



domesticated plants. These changes may be attributed in part to the social and economic trends already identi

fied, but I believe that population pressures (Cohen 1977) are the single most important contributing factor.

Initially the pastoralists would be able to enlarge their herds by ex

panding into areas not occupied by other herders and by displacing the wild guanaco, vicu?a, deer, and other

grazers. The increase in human pop ulation would be dealt with simply by expanding into unoccupied or un derutilized territory. Eventually, however, the point is reached where all available pasturage is already being exploited, and the remaining free lands are not particularly suited to pastoralism. In the Titicaca basin, fragmentary evidence suggests a shift to new productive techniques some four thousand years ago. I postulate that it was at this time that the

carrying capacity of the region in terms of carnivorous pastoralism was

reached, and population pressures made it attractive to place increasing reliance on more labor-intensive

techniques of exploitation.

Early plant and mineral resources

By 1200 to 1000 B.C. a number of

sedentary villages?Marcavalle, Qa luyu, Pucar?, Taraco, Chiripa, Ti

wanaku, Wankarani, and Soko ti?a?can be identified in the region (Browman 1980) (Fig. 2). Only in the last decade have archaeologists in the

Andes had available to them tech

niques for the recovery and identifi cation of domestic plants from open village sites, where decay processes generally destroy all macroscopic evidence. One of these techniques, the archaeobotanical analysis of flotation

samples, was applied to the analysis of materials from my excavations at

Chiripa.

Plants introduced into human set tlements were frequently burned, ei ther deliberately or accidentally. Al

though most of the plant is com

pletely consumed by fire, it has been discovered (Watson 1976) that min ute charred portions remain. If soil from an archaeological excavation is

gently agitated in water, a froth is formed which consists of modern

rootlets, minute bits of charred plant, snail shells, and small, light bones from rodents, birds, and fish. Certain

other, denser charred material sinks to the bottom of the sample. These two fractions may thus be separated and identified. While water is the most frequent medium, recovery may be enhanced by the use of certain chemical solutions of selected specific gravities that maximize separation.

In our work at Chiripa we used a fine-mesh screen with openings of 0.25 mm2 to skim off the froth on top of the samples, which were agitated in local spring water, and a larger mesh

with openings of 2.25 mm2 to collect the heavier fraction. Identification

posed a major problem. While we have access to excellent herbaria, such as the Missouri Botanical Gar dens in St. Louis, and while we have made our own on-site herbaria of local

plants, it is often difficult to identify the minute fragments recovered, since charring sometimes distorts the

configuration of the plant parts. We also at times encountered plants whose economic importance had not

previously been reported, and which had not been included among our

comparative materials.

Analysis of phytoliths in the Chiripa materials is also being undertaken.

Phytoliths?microscopic biogenetic opal material found in certain grasses?can be extracted from two

major sources: soil samples from the various occupation levels and silica

deposits on the teeth of llamas and alpacas. Identification of plants in the occupation levels would obviously not be restricted to species used for food; we would also expect to find plants used for technological purposes?for example, basketry, bedding, and roof construction?as well as special

purpose plants such as medicinal herbs. Identification of phytoliths found on llama and alpaca teeth would reveal what fodder was fed to these animals and would thus tell us

more about patterns of animal man

agement. Pearsall (1978 and 1980) has been successful in identifying domestic plants in the Andes through phytolith analysis, and in the process has been able to push back the date of first domestication of two species. Phytoliths are present in the Chiripa soil and in archaeozoological samples from the site, but we have not yet achieved comparable results.

On the basis of plant remains from

Chiripa and the area of Lake Titicaca, we can document the integration of a

Figure 2. The Bolivian altiplano, a high, flat

plain lying between two vast Andean mountain

ranges, served as the cradle of the Tiwanaku civilization. Tiwanaku was one of a number of

early sedentary villages that grew up around the shores of Lake Titicaca, ultimately be

coming the center of a powerful trade federa tion whose influence extended to western Bo

livia, northern Chili, northwestern Argentina, and southernmost Peru.

number of important seed and root

crops into the altiplano economy by the period 1500 to 1000 B.C. These crops include several chenopod and amaranth grains: quinoa (Chenopo dium quinoa), ca?ihua (Ch. pallidi caule), and achita, or coimi (Amar anthus caudatus); three different

legumes: tarivi (Lupinus mutabilis), jiquima (Pachyrrhizus ahipa), and the common bean (Phaseolus vulga ris); and four different tubers: potato (probably the tetraploid Solanum

tuberosum), oca (Oxalis tuberosa), mashua, or a?u (Tropaeolum tub

erosum), and ullucu (Ullucus tub er osus) (Browman, in press; Pick

ersgill and Heiser 1978). These plants were still being grown as the primary crops at the time of the first Spanish conquest of the area.

Routine identification, however, fails to make clear one very interesting aspect of this assemblage. Plant do mestication in the altiplano required the simultaneous development of

detoxifying techniques. The majority of the plants listed above contain

significant levels of toxins in an un treated state. For example, the potato species that are most resistant to frost and that grow best at high altitudes also contain the highest levels of gly coalkaloid solanine. In addition, the

potato contains an inhibitor for a wide range of digestive enzymes nec

essary for breaking down proteins?a particularly unfortunate trait at high altitudes, where differential partial oxygen pressure already impairs the

chemistry of protein breakdown. Potatoes also belong to a group of

plants that are nitrate accumulators, and thus possess the nutritional dif ficulties common to such plants as

well.

Altiplano farmers have for several thousand years produced the freeze dried potato, or ch'u?o, by a process of freezing, leaching, and sun-drying.




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The initial explanation for this pro cess was that it produced a food

product that could be stored for long periods of time. The fact that ch'u?o can be stored for six years or more

made it possible to reserve surpluses from bumper years and to have a se cure year-round food base, permitting farmers to become involved in non

subsistence activities such as religion, science, philosophy, and politics. We can now suggest another rationale.

Leaching and sun-drying are neces

sary to remove the majority of the solanine and to lower excessive ni trate levels, and the subsequent cooking of the freeze-dried products

destroys the inhibitors of digestive enzymes. Rather than arguing that

freeze-drying was motivated only by a desire to produce a secure food base, allowing more elaborate socio-cul tural development, one could hold that this technology was mandatory to make the potato available as a us

able nutritive source. Both factors are

clearly present.

The other plants identified as early domesticates at the Titicaca sites have similar levels of toxins, and all

require the use of various detoxifica tion techniques to make them suit able for human consumption. Oca has

significant amounts of Oxalates; qui noa and ca?ihua have high levels of

hydrocyanic acid and the alkaloid

saponin; amaranth is a nitrate accu mulator and has high levels of Oxa

lates; tarwi contains the poisonous alkaloid lupinine; beans contain

varying levels of the cyanogenetic glycoside phaseolunatin; and so on

(Browman, in press). In some in stances the detoxifying procedures serendipitously result in an end

product that has excellent storage features, multiplying the beneficial effects of the technology. Where the detoxification technology does not have this added effect?for example,




in the case of quinoa, amaranth, and tarwi?the plants generally already have excellent natural storage char acteristics. There is as yet no satis

factory explanation for the develop ment of detoxification processes. Why the early inhabitants of the Ti ticaca basin continued to experiment with plants that must have given ample gastrointestinal distress during unsuccessful tests until they achieved a practical technology is a question we must still seek to answer.

Not all plant resources were domest icated. Fruits of various cacti, pre dominantly Opuntia spp., were col lected and eaten. Lake Titicaca itself

was a major source of plant food.

Rhizomes, tubers, and portions of the stems of the lakeside totora (Scirpus sp.) and of certain reeds (Juncus sp.) were eaten. The spongy, moist, white

pith of the totora stem is still sold as a delicacy in regional markets and at

village festivals. Dense growths of water weeds and algae are found

along the shores of the lake. Dried bricks of these water plants are still carried by llama trade caravans in southern Peru and on the Bolivian

altiplano, and in some areas these bricks are used as standard units of trade (Casaverde Rojas 1977).

The appearance of these aquatic re sources in our archaeological record was a surprise, since earlier research had completely overlooked them.

Analysis now in progress indicates that they may include submersed vascular plants such as Azolla sp.,

Myriophyllum sp., Elodea sp., and

Potamoget?n sp.; the green alga Cladophora; the blue-green alga Nostoc; and the algal stonewort Chara. Work on related species of

Myriophyllum y Potamoget?n, Elo dea , and Chara native to the United States has demonstrated that these

aquatic plants are excellent sources of

protein, with values of crude protein ranging from 10 to 25% (Boyd 1968).

Direct ingestion of minerals, or geo phagy, is an important source of cal

cium, iron, magnesium, sodium, and

potassium among some Lake Titicaca

populations today. This practice is well known during the historic period, and we believe we may have recov ered some evidence of it as early as 600 B.C. at Chiripa. Trade in edible

clays is another activity of the disap pearing llama caravans. Even today

caravan drovers from the area of

Paratia, in the department of Puno, Peru, complement their loads with

bags of two different varieties of edi ble clays, which they then trade in the Lake Titicaca area for tubers and

grains (Flores Ochoa 1977). Refer ences in the literature identify a dozen or more clays and minerals traded in the puna and altiplano areas. The bioavailability of minerals in all these clays has not been estab

lished; some clays, rather than being possible sources of minerals, bind nutrients in the form of insoluble

compounds and thus remove ele ments from the nutritional base rather than adding to it. However, in the case of two of the most frequently used clays, hydrated aluminosilicates known as p'asa and ch'aqo, C?spedes and Villegas (1977) have demon strated that soluble salts of alumi num, magnesium, iron, sodium, cal

cium, and potassium are present.

The specific prehistoric mineral source we have identified is katawi, or

cal, which is prepared by calcining calcium-containing rocks and grind ing the remains into a fine powder.

Katawi is not eaten as a pure sub

stance, but rather?as is the case with all comestible clays and minerals?is used as a sauce or condiment with either tuber or chenopod grain dishes. It has been suggested that in addition to providing needed minerals missing from the diet, these comestible clays may also interact with residual plant toxins to form insoluble precipitates, thus enhancing the nutritional value of available plant resources. This is an

intriguing hypothesis, but one which has not yet been tested. Small de

posits of katawi have been recovered from an excavation unit at Chiripa which has been assigned a date of 600-350 B.C. by radiocarbon and thermoluminescent dating tech

niques. There are obvious difficulties in identifying clays and minerals found in such excavations as being present for nutritional purposes, as

opposed to being merely part of the soil deposition, and thus it is difficult to determine how early in the ar

chaeological record the use of these mineral sources became widespread. In general we have underestimated their importance.

By the middle of the second millen nium B.C., the inhabitants of the al

tiplano had established a mixed sub sistence base of tuber and grain agri

culture and camelid pastoralism. Mobile populations tend to have little in the way of material possessions, since all goods must be picked up and carried each time a group moves on.

However, with the establishment of

sedentary villages, which was per mitted by the development of a mixed

agricultural and pastoral subsistence

base, material goods begin to accu mulate. New technologies are added, in our area including pottery making and metallurgy, and existing tech

nologies, such as basketry and weav

ing, become much more elaborate.

Pottery is particularly useful for fine-scale dating. Vessels in everyday use generally have a life-span of from one to three years; storage vessels and ceremonial or religious vessels have

longer life-spans, but usually no more than 20 to 25 years on the average. Since ceramic styles changed nearly as rapidly as modern dress and auto mobile styles, it is possible, on the basis of broken potsherds alone, to correlate occupation levels with cul tural units lasting a generation or less?that is, about 25 years. While this has been achieved in some areas in Greece and in coastal Peru, we have not yet attained such precision in the

altiplano, although we can now iden

tify units of a century or less.

Pre-Tiwanaku

development The civilization of Tiwanaku has at times been compared with that of the

Maya, as an enigmatic empire that

suddenly appears, flourishes, and

mysteriously disappears. As with the

Maya, however, this romantic picture vanishes with new research. We find a well-ordered developmental se

quence, followed by a transformation at the end of the empire into tribal chiefdoms such as those encountered

by the Inca. Our recent work at sites around the south end of Lake Titi caca has shed some light on the eco nomic and political evolution of the

polities preceding Tiwanaku. The succession of cultural phases that has

emerged is illustrated in Table 1.

During the Condori Phase (1350-850 B.C.) the first ceramic-using groups appear around the Little Lake of Ti

ticaca, a small body of water at the southern end of Lake Titicaca iso lated from the rest of the lake by the

Copacabana peninsula. Primarily on the basis of ceramic traits, we can




outline a sphere of interaction bounded on the north by the Nudo de Vilcanota?the northern end of the

altiplano?and on the south by Lake

Poopo in the department of Oruro. South of Lake Poopo rainfall drops off to less than 200 mm per year, thus

effectively halting the spread of ag ricultural communities, and north of the Nudo de Vilcanota we lose part of the broad expanses of grazing land, instead finding an environment typ ified by an increasing number of deep

mountain valleys. Specific traits of the Condori Phase are also seen at sites such as Marcavalle, Qaluyu, Pikicallepata, and Pizacoma in Puno and Sokoti?a and Wankarani in Oruro. There is a predominance of dark brown wares, with some red wares, and the ceramic tradition is further characterized by a mica tem

per, pebble or spatual polishing, and decorations limited mainly to red

slips and broadline incised or grooved geometric designs (Browman 1980).

Trade had expanded to include

sumptuary commodities, the distri bution and quantities of which

suggest that by this time, if not ear

lier, caravan trade networks were well established in the Titicaca basin. The three most common classes of sump tuary goods were metal items (gold, silver, and copper), semiprecious stones (turquoise, lapis lazuli, soda

lite, malachite, and obsidian), and Pacific Coast seashells, including rare

examples of Spondylus that must have come from southern Ecuador. Information from desert sites in northern Chile indicates that fancy wool textiles and hallucinogenic drugs from Amazonia were also significant long-distance, status-enhancing trade

goods.

There was also a regional trade both in consumables?agricultural prod ucts such as corn, aji (chili peppers), squash, coca leaf, quinoa, and pota toes?and in items of local manufac ture such as ceramic vessels, stone

projectile points, stone and ceramic

figurines, and tropical and coastal wood products. The trade in con sumables is less spectacular than the trade in luxury items, and more dif ficult to detect archaeologically, but it was much more important to the

average altiplano inhabitant. These

larger, bulkier items were the major goods transported during Inca times

by the llama caravans, which tra versed the area at the end of the har

Table 1. Sequence of cultural phases in the

area of Lake Titicaca

Condori Phase 1350-850 b.c.

Llusco Phase 850-600 b.c.

Mamani, or Classic

Chiripa, Phase 600-200/100 b.c.

Tiwanaku \/\\, or

Kalasasaya, Phase 200/100 b.c-a.d. 125

Tiwanaku III, or

Qeya, Phase a.D. 125-375

Tiwanaku IV, or

Classic Tiwanaku, Phase a.D. 375-750

Tiwanaku V a.d. 750-1250

Various regional

phases and later

Inca conquest a.d. 1250-1532

vest on trips lasting up to six months. Access to tropical and coastal prod ucts through this mechanism filled needs far more basic than those served by the exotic trade in luxury goods. A single drover might manage as many as 25 to 30 pack llamas, each

capable of carrying up to 45 kg of merchandise, and thus a single indi vidual could easily transport a metric ton of bulk consumables. While we cannot yet demonstrate that the earlier caravans of 1300 B.C. were of the same magnitude of importance, we can safely say that a similar pat tern had already been established.

It should be noted that in many areas of the altiplano such patterns per sisted until the early part of this

century. Agricultural production is insufficient for year-round subsis tence, and local communities have

traditionally gained access to basic necessities by trading pastoral prod ucts for lowland grains and by bar

tering the services of their llamas as lowland transport.

The Llusco Phase (850-600 B.C.) saw the elaboration of many of the traits described above. In ceramics?the most ubiquitous items and thus the easiest to compare?the phase is

distinguished by the use of fiber as a

tempering material and by new

painted decorations, both bichrome

(black on red and cream on red) and

polychrome (black and cream on red). Designs are characterized by dualism and symmetry, with carefully exe cuted rectilinear motifs occasionally outlined by or in conjunction with narrow-line incision.

The appearance of a new tempering material seems to reflect the presence of a new cultural boundary bisecting the former region, one which con tinues to influence later styles in stone iconography and ceramic dec oration. Fiber-tempered ware is characteristic of the Bolivian portion of the altiplano, but does not pene trate far into Peru. I have observed it

only at sites on the Copacabana pen insula and slightly north, and Hyslop (1976) similarly found it limited to the south end of Lake Titicaca.

Broadly similar decorative techniques continue to prevail around the lake, but they are beginning to diverge and become quite distinct in later pe riods.

In the south of the Titicaca area and on the Bolivian altiplano, sites begin to be associated with mounds, or t?mulos. These mounds appear to be identical in origin to the tells of the

Middle East or the huacas of the Peruvian coast. Over the years, the

crumbling of the adobes and sun dried earthen bricks used in house construction leads in continually oc

cupied and reoccupied sites to suffi cient accumulation of debris to form low mounds. Although it has been

suggested that these mounds were

deliberately constructed, all the evi dence from Chiripa and other alti

plano sites that I have seen indicates a natural process of slow accretion of refuse and fill.

The Mamani, or Classic Chiripa, Phase (600-200/100 B.C.) appears to mark the beginning of the next major period of economic and political de

velopment in the Titicaca basin. The cultural boundary between the northern and southern portions of the Titicaca basin is accentuated, with

regional spheres of influence devel

oping. Pucar? dominated the area north of Lake Titicaca, no doubt in tandem with Taraco, while first Chi

ripa and later Tiwanaku dominated the area immediately south of the lake. New advances from the Titicaca basin are found in the zone known as the ceja de monta?a ("eyebrow of the

jungle"), east of Lake Titicaca. This is the location of the Callawaya her




balists, and this penetration suggests that these famous Andean healers and pharmacists may already have

begun to ply their trade at this time.

Stone sculpture and ceremonial ce ramics of the Mamani Phase depict religious themes. Although later Ti wanaku religion has generally been viewed as a revival of Chavin con

cepts, the religious themes we find at this time are non-Chavinoid and ap parently predate Chavin presence in this area. The identification of a non-Chavin religious pantheon with which Chavin deities may later have been merged to form the Tiwanaku

assemblage is an important step for ward in our ability to understand the

religious basis of Tiwanaku. Sculp tures in the Asiruni and Pajano styles (Browman 1978) suggest what might be termed a "metaphysical meta

morphosis" creed. Religious repre sentations most commonly represent amphibians and reptiles in a variety of contexts.

Metaphysical metamorphosis is most

clearly illustrated by the motif of the

morphogenetic development of frog or toad from egg to aquatic tadpole to terrestrial amphibian. This specific sequence is particularly frequent on

monoliths from Pucar? and Taraco, but it is also found at sites contem

porary with Chiripa. It is associated with another set of motifs dealing with humans and raptorial birds, probably eagles. The religious mes

sage as we interpret it is the following: just as the tadpole emerges from the egg to become an aquatic animal, and after living right goes on to make the next step and become a land animal, so too man has hope. He will go from this terrestrial existence to a stellar existence (indicated by various

winged "angel" figures) if he lives

correctly.

Dualism pervades the ethnographic social structure of this region. On the basis of the depictions of religious themes in our archaeological materi als, this dyadic modality can now be extended backward in time from the Inca to Tiwanaku and from Tiwana ku to Pajano materials of the Mamani Phase. Pajano (derived from the local

Aymara word for "two-faced") monoliths appear to require con

trasting sets. Animals are always shown in pairs, and earth is placed in antithesis to the heavens. Monolithic

deities are two-faced: one side of the stela shows a human-like male figure, while the figure on the obverse is clearly female. Such dualism is later quite marked in Tiwanaku depic tions. Thus Tiwanaku representa tions no longer appear to have devel oped suddenly overnight, but can be seen as part of a long local develop

ment of such concepts. Later classic Tiwanaku deities, used as focal points of Tiwanaku III-V temples, are de rived from a mixture of Pajano and Chavin styles (Fig. 3).

The Chiripa site contains the earliest subterranean temple or religious precinct identified in the Titicaca area. Such temples are known from other contemporary sites in both the Pucar? and Chiripa spheres of influ ence, and are later one of the variants associated with Tiwanaku sites. The

Chiripa temple was a rectangular ceremonial precinct, approximately 22 X 23.5 m. (Most of the stone has been reused in the later Tiwanaku phase temple at Chiripa or removed for other purposes, complicating precise measurements.) The temple was placed in the center of a larger mound formed by slow accretion of refuse from occupation and from eroded adobe and puddled-mud structures. The larger mound mea sures 50 m on a side; three sides on a downhill slope were faced off and revetted with a fieldstone wall up to 3 m high.

Analysis (Ehlers, unpubl.) of the large building stones used to construct the temple indicates the presence of both sandstone and limestone. The sand stone was quarried locally, but there is no source of limestone in the im

mediate neighborhood. The closest limestone sources are in the Straits of

Tiquina and on the islands of the

lake, about 20 to 30 km from the site across open water as measured by a

straight line (see Fig. 2). The quarried stone appears to have been conveyed to the site by totora-reed boats, a form of water transport much more

frequent in later Tiwanaku phases. At Tiwanaku itself, various and?sites used in the temples and public structures have been identified by trace-element analysis as having come from formations near Copaca bana and Yunguyo, across Lake Ti ticaca.

A land road has been discovered

running from the site of Tiwanaku to

the lake port of Iwawe, and numerous blocks of and?site, apparently spilled in unloading accidents and then abandoned, have been found scat tered along the Iwawe waterfront. (The abandoned and?sites were also

quarried on the Copacabana penin sula.) In Tiwanaku times, then, large blocks of stone weighing up to 11 tons were transported in totora-reed boats from Copacabana to Iwawe, a dis tance of some 94 km, and thence overland to Tiwanaku, an additional 22 km. At Chiripa we have the be

ginnings of this practice of trans

porting building materials, with limestone sources at Cumana Island or the Straits of Tiquina readily reached by totora-reed boats.

The temple at Chiripa may be unique in having domestic structures so

closely associated with the sacred area. The architectural evidence we found confirms earlier reports by Bennett (1936) and Kidder (1956). Unusual features of these rectangular thatched-roofed stone and adobe structures are a groove for some kind of fitted or sliding door and storage bins accommodated by a double-wall construction. Otherwise the houses differ little in size or construction from those built in this area today.

The altiplano mode

During the later portion of the Ma mani Phase and in the succeeding Tiwanku I/II, or Kalasasaya, Phase (200/100 B.C.-A.D. 125), a new pattern of economic integration emerges. This

"altiplano" mode contrasts sharply with the "archipelago" mode popular in Peruvian social science in recent

years. Both of these modes developed in Andean communities which are not

agriculturally self-sufficient, pri marily because of uneven distribution of ecological zones, but there is a dis tinct difference in the ways in which

they deal with this problem.

One solution is direct exploitation of several different ecological zones by a single group. A community gains direct access to needed resources by sending members of its own descent

group to a variety of other ecozones; these emissaries then produce the commodities offered by that zone and

transport them back to the home

village. This archipelago mode takes its name from the existence of little islands of production scattered

throughout a number of different




zones?a pattern that still exists

today in attenuated form along the

sharply dissected slopes of the west ern Andes in Peru. Labor and social costs obviously vary with the scale and distance of these enterprises. One

sixteenth-century ethnic group near Lake Titicaca, the Lupaqa, settled about 5% of its population in these external zones; again that many were involved in providing supplies, transport, and other support for these

small, scattered groups. A significant proportion of the population was thus involved in a system of resource ex

ploitation whose social as well as economic costs seem relatively high.

The archipelago model may be rea

sonably efficient as a means of ex

ploiting resources on the steep flanks of the Andes, in western Peru and Chile. The Bolivian altiplano, how

ever, is a high, flat plain with an ele vation of roughly 3,600 to 3,900 m,

measuring about 800 km from north to south and 350 km from east to west at its widest points. The political, economic, and social costs of trying to control small islands of production in a number of ecozones hundreds of kilometers from the home village is

immediately evident. The archipelago model is impracticable for folk living in the middle of the altiplano, and other mechanisms had to be found to obtain the needed resources.

The solution arrived at by the in habitants of this area was one of ex

change, with access to goods from other ecological zones achieved

through trade networks?the basis of the altiplano mode. Craft specializa tion, periodic markets, and regular caravan trade emerge, reaching greatest significance during the Ti wanaku IV, or Classic Tiwanaku, Phase (A.D. 375-750) and becoming only slightly less important during the Inca period (A.D. 1450-1532). Because all altiplano communities

produce roughly the same commodi

ties, trading with these goods alone would not yield immediate access to

required resources from other eco zones. Thus many communities have

traditionally specialized in certain

products such as pottery or textiles, or in metal mining and fabrication. The altiplano individual had to be come either an expert trader, ac

quiring goods through his entrepre neurial skills, or an accomplished craftsman, exchanging his marketable skills for desired commodities.

This kind of development can be de tected even before the rise of Tiwan aku. Evidence of such trade patterns can be seen at Chiripa in ceramic

materials and also in certain stone and metal items. Since the closest source of obsidian is in the mountains due east of the site, we had assumed that the obsidian used in artifacts found at Chiripa would prove to be from that area. However, trace-ele

ment analysis by x-ray fluorescence at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Burger, pers. comm.) indicated two

types of obsidian whose sources were a good deal more distant: the Tumu ku type, believed to come from the

department of Puno, about 150 km to the north of Chiripa, and the Titicaca basin type, whose source is now be lieved to be somewhere in Arequipa

Department, Peru, more than 300 km to the west of Chiripa. Obsidian was thus obtained not from the closest source but rather from specialized purveyors of the material. The Titi caca basin type obsidian is particu larly common in later Tiwanaku sites

(Burger and Asaro 1977 and 1979), indicating that this pattern of trade

persisted and expanded.

Analysis of other mineral objects has indicated a similar "coals to

Newcastle" type of trade. Copper is mined in several places in nearby highland Bolivia, and there was a co lonial copper mine only a few kilo

meters south of Tiwanaku, within 30 km of Chiripa. Hence we were quite surprised when the Chiripa ore spec imens proved to be antlerite and

brochantite, oxidation products that form only in arid environments. The nearest source of such ores, according to the published literature, would be the deserts of northern Chile. Thus evidence from both copper and ob sidian artifacts would support the existence of an altiplano mode of economic integration beginning at least a millennium before the emer

gence of Tiwanaku as an imperial city.

The rise of Tiwanaku During the first three centuries A.D., Tiwanaku began to achieve ascen

dancy over other altiplano regional centers, emerging as both the major power in trade and the political head of a loosely organized group of semi

independent trade centers in western

Bolivia, northern Chile, northwestern

Argentina, and southernmost Peru.

Figure 3. One of the many monumental repre sentations of deities found in Tiwanaku, the

Ponce monolith stands in the center of the in

terior courtyard of the temple of Kalasasaya

(see Fig. 1). Like the temple itself, the mono

lith, which is approximately 2.80 m high, dates

from the Tiwanaku IV Phase. The serpentine and avian heads caved on its belt are symbolic of the dualism of earth and heavens that per vades the Tiwanaku religion; the winged fig ures on its headband are also a characteristic

motif. The mound in the background is the

remains of the Akapana pyramid, which

probably also dates from Tiwanaku IV. (Photo

by the author.)




Mercantile exchange was an impor tant factor in the maintenance and

expansion of Tiwanaku influence. The city with its guilds of craftsmen served as an industrial hub, importing raw materials and exporting finished

manufactured goods. I believe that Tiwanaku was forced to extend its

political control because larger and

larger market areas became manda tory to absorb its increasingly more

specialized industrial products.

The Tiwanaku urban center is sit uated in a small valley bounded by low hills about 200 m high. The ele vation of the city, roughly 3,850 m, makes it one of the highest imperial cities in the world, higher than Inca Cuzco and equalled in altitude only by cities in Nepal and Tibet. Early archaeological studies of Tiwanaku focused on the visible remains of the ceremonial structures at the heart of the city. The site has unfortunately long been viewed as a convenient source of building stone. Some Ti wanaku stone was incorporated in

nearby structures of the Inca period, but the majority of it disappeared into later colonial and modern struc tures, being used variously as foun dation stones for surrounding haci endas, as the primary building ma terial for the imposing colonial Catholic churches in Tiwanaku vil

lage and in Laja, as bridge and trestle abutments for the railroad from Lake Titicaca to La Paz, and even as basic building material for several struc tures in the city of La Paz, about 80 km to the east.

It is only recently, with the excavation of the foundations of the temples and administrative buildings, the plotting of the distribution of occupational debris, and the use of remote-sensing techniques to detect and map buried structures, that we have been able to establish the magnitude of the origi nal city. The core of the city, which includes the Akapana pyramid and the temples and palaces of Kalasa saya (see Fig. 1), Pumapunku, Kan tataita, Putuni, Kherikala, and Lak kakollu?the standing architectural remains?is laid out on a grid plan oriented to the cardinal directions. Characterized by an elaborate system of covered drainage canals and a number of impressive central monu ments and stelae, this area consists of less than 20 ha. The total urban

sprawl mapped to date, however, covers more than 400 ha, or over 4

Figure 4. Although the Peruvian empire of Wari rivaled its sister power Tiwanaku in

geographical extent?here reconstructed for both civilizations for about A.D. 750?its capital city seems to have been somewhat smaller than that of Tiwanaku, reinforcing evidence of Ti wanaku's prominence. The Wari empire ex

panded rapidly between A.D. 500 and 800, spreading the Tiwanaku religion by military conquest. Its sudden collapse for unknown reasons around A.D. 800-850 had profound consequences for Tiwanaku, removing an im

portant market and source of raw materials.

(After Menzel 1964; Lumbreras 1974; Brow man 1978.)

km2, so that the administrative and

religious area comprises less than 5% of the total urban zone. On the basis of evidence from current excavations, we estimate the population of this urban area to have been about 25,000 to 40,000 people (Ponce Sangines 1972). A recent survey of Wari, capital of the sister empire in Peru at this time (Fig. 4), places its size at 300 ha

(Isbell and Schreiber 1978), making it about 25% smaller in area than Ti

wanaku. Although such gross mea sures are not too meaningful, they do

support other data suggesting the

far-reaching importance of Tiwanak? in the Andes at this time and its pri

macy among other cities.

Associated with Tiwanaku were a number of satellite towns that appear to have occupied various levels of

importance. Most of the larger sites had central temple complexes mod eled after the Kalasasaya temple at Tiwanaku and also included half a dozen or more stone monoliths or stelae either directly imported from Tiwanaku or faithfully copied from the major representation of deities there. Sites with special functions are found in the contiguous areas. Sig nificant among these are Iwawe, the main port of Tiwanaku on Lake Ti

ticaca, and Simillake, which con trolled trade and traffic at the upper end of the Desaguadero River.

A massive investment of labor in construction of public architecture is evident. As noted earlier, and?sites used for the elaborately sculptured monoliths and other structures were

quarried on the Copacabana penin sula, loaded on totora-reed boats, and ferried across the lake to the port of Iwawe, where they were then trans

ported overland. More massive stones were quarried nearby. The heaviest stone yet recovered at Tiwanaku, a sandstone block weighing 131 tons, was transported to the temple of

Pumapunku from a quarry 10 km south of the city. Rocks were quarried

mainly by hand maul, and the re

sulting blocks were then dragged across the landscape on ramps and skids. Arrow-straight skid marks be tween the quarries and the temples are faintly detectable on the ground, and can be clearly seen in aerial pho tographs of the site.

Raw materials were imported from a wide area. The vitreous basalt used for agricultural hoes was quarried on an island in Lake Poopo, 300 km to the south. Sodalite used for beads and ceremonial mortars came from Cerro Sapo in Cochabamba, 175 km to the east. Copper, tin, gold, silver, and other minerals were mined at Coro coro and in the Quimsachata Range as well as in the basin of the La Paz River, in the area of the province of

Callawaya, to the east of Lake Titi caca, and in Chile. Metallurgists in Tiwanaku cast items of copper, silver, and gold and fabricated tools and ornaments from alloys such as arsenic and tin bronzes. The major source of obsidian, as mentioned previously, is tentatively identified as being located

more than 300 km to the west. Sea shells, corn, chili peppers, cotton, and dried fish were imported from the Pacific coast. From the Amazonian basin, the most important imports were those of medicinal and religious value?coca, tobacco, and various hallucinogens of the Ilex, Datura, Banisteriopsis, and Anadenanthera genera.

Tiwanaku influence Interaction between Tiwanaku and other towns in the federation was based on economic and theological ties rather than on political expedi




ency. The majority of the artifacts recovered from sites linked with the Tiwanaku federation are associated with the use of hallucinogenic plants in Tiwanaku religious ceremonies. A characteristic assemblage of equip

ment?carved stone mortars and

pestles, stone bowls and cups with incised religious designs, decorated

pottery incensarios and other pottery vessels, wooden snuff tabletas, snuff tubes of wood and bone, snuff spoons of wood, and various items of gold, silver, copper, and bronze decorated with Tiwanaku motifs?is found over a wide area including western Bolivia, southernmost Peru, north and central

Chile, and, to a lesser extent, north western Argentina.

The presence of this assemblage is the most frequent mark of Tiwanaku in fluence in the area, but the pattern of distribution is far different from that of Tiwanaku religious artifacts spread by Wari conquest in Peru, where the base assemblage seems to have been

imperially decreed. Each separate center in Bolivia, Chile, and Argen tina exhibits a unique assemblage of Tiwanaku materials; each town ap pears to have created an assemblage appropriate to local religious prac tices by selecting components from itinerant Tiwanaku caravan traders,

who also supplied other miscellaneous trade goods (see Browman 1978).

The Wari state in Peru expanded very rapidly, with the conquerors apparently spreading their variant of the Tiwanaku religious message by armed force, much as Islam was

spread across North Africa. The pe riod between roughly A.D. 500 and 800 is marked by great economic and po litical vigor of both the Wari state and the Tiwanaku economic federation. The Wari empire apparently col

lapsed as suddenly as it rose, for rea sons which are not yet clear. This

collapse, which obviously removed Wari markets and raw materials from the trade networks, is mirrored in serious economic disruption within the Tiwanaku confederation and in Tiwanaku itself, as seen, for example, in the shift from Phase IV to Phase V.

Tiwanaku lost other markets and sources of raw materials as well. In

Bolivia, it appears to have lost control of trade in the Cochabamba valley. This event is not yet well understood and the date remains somewhat un

certain, but it seems to have occurred between A.D. 900 and 1000.

Cochabamba, with its Mediterranean

climate, is one of the most important food-producing areas in Bolivia

today, a position it held during the earlier Inca period and probably in Tiwanaku times as well. Perhaps Ti wanaku had allowed trade relation

ships to deteriorate, having relied

increasingly on Wari custom. If this were the case, then Cochabamba may have developed its own independent network, no longer requiring the ser vices of Tiwanaku traders as mid dlemen. Or perhaps Tiwanaku was at a sufficient disadvantage following the Wari collapse that it was not able to maintain its paramount place in the market network, and Cocha bamba was able to assert and main tain its independence.

Thus Tiwanaku lost two important markets and sources of raw materials at roughly the same time. The effects of this economic dislocation may be observed in a concurrent religious reformulation. Earlier symbolism is

greatly changed, and new deities be come powerful. Although Tiwanaku

persisted as a highland kingdom for at least four hundred years after the

Wari collapse, this period is marked

by an ever-contracting sphere of in fluence. For a short while, Tiwanaku seems to have been able to compen sate in part for the loss of agricultural resources from Cochabamba by adopting a new, Peruvian-style strategy of vertical control, the so- .

called archipelago mode of economic

integration. Tiwanaku Phase V colo nial outposts suddenly appear on the south coast of Peru at this time, oc

casionally situated as far north as former Wari-controlled area. Data available thus far suggest that these settlements first appeared about A.D. 950-1000 and persist no later than A.D. 1200-50. To the south, secondary centers in Chile formerly influenced

by Tiwanaku begin to monopolize trade in Chile and Argentina. Central Chile and northwestern Argentina become organized into a series of in

terdependent but autonomous chiefdoms (Pollard 1979; Serracino

1980). After approximately A.D.

1200-1300, identifiable Tiwanaku influence disappears completely, and the city of Tiwanaku itself is aban doned.

For the next few centuries, until the Inca conquest around A.D. 1460, var ious small kingdoms around Lake

Titicaca, such as the Lupaqa and

Pacajes, continued to maintain colo nial outposts on the Peruvian coast. Similar relationships developed be tween highland groups in southern Bolivia and northwestern Argentina and the Chilean coastal areas. Ti

wanaku, even though abandoned, retained local prestige in the Titicaca area. When the Inca conquered the

region they built a small temple on the ruins of the old city, using its

prestige as one means of validating their rule.

Traces of Tiwanaku influence may be seen in such aspects of contemporary life as the distribution of indigenous language dialects and the distribution of races of maize. The identification of the language spoken by the original Tiwanaku inhabitants has long posed a problem. Earlier cultural recon structions have suggested that the

language of Tiwanaku in A.D. 375-750 was variously Quechua, Aymara, Pukina, or Uru-Chipaya. Quechua can be shown to have intruded into the area only with the Inca conquest (Torero 1972,1974; Parker 1963).

What about Pukina, Uru-Chipaya, and Aymara? Historical references to the distribution of various languages at the time of the Spanish conquest and subsequent linguistic analyses indicate that Pukina and Uru-Chi

paya existed as small, disparate, scattered relics even in the sixteenth

century. Word lists identified in the literature as belonging to the Uru/

Chipaya/Pukina family have been found by linguists to belong to three

major, mutually unintelligible, ma crofamilies: Penutian, Macro-Chib

chan, and Arawakan. It thus appears that any language in the Andes not

clearly identifiable as either Quechua or Aymara was quickly categorized as "other"?sometimes being called

Uru, sometimes Pukina, and some times by local geographical names. There is no apparent communality among these languages, and no con

vincing evidence upon which to base

any argument for their association with Tiwanaku. More likely they re late to Chiripa or other, earlier folk.

On the other hand, there is a sub stantial case for the argument that

Aymara was the language of Tiwan

aku, in view of recent evidence (Bird et al, unpubl.) that the inhabitants of the Tiwanaku area at the time of the Inca conquest spoke Aymara. Also

important is the fact that the distri




Cuzco /

Abancay

BOLIVIA PERUJ

0 ugo 0 -

Arequi \~ CHILEg -1. . '.. pe:

rm* -

TQcn

- *2 - 1 - T - * - * - * - r - ~ ~~ ~ --- - y - - - -

- - - - -I*

* - - *

. *U .- - * - -

- -*-IX

CHILE\

Figure 6. The distribution of maize complexes (color) associated with pre-Inca civiliza

tions?the central Andean maize and the south

Andean flint complex?shows a close correla tion with the extent of the Tiwanaku and Wari

kingdoms as seen in Figure 4. Like the lin

guistic evidence, these data support recent

archaeological findings. It appears likely that Tiwanaku and Wari spread these maize races

within the areas in which they were influential,

just as the Inca later brought their own Cuzco

maize complex to conquered regions.

bution of the three major dialects of modern Aymara (Fig. 5) appears closely correlated with archaeological evidence for the spread of Tiwanaku influence. The northern dialect of

Aymara is found in the area where Tiwanaku civilization seems to have coalesced between 200 B.c. and A.D. 400. The southern dialect appears in the area, particularly around Cocha

bamba, where Tiwanaku influence was preeminent in Phase IV (A.D. 375-750). The intermediate dialect is found in the area to the northwest

(Tacna, Moquegua, and Arequipa), where we have seen new Tiwanaku Phase V colonies being established in ca. A.D. 900-1200, following the col

lapse of Wari.

Similarly, the current distribution of maize races?informal taxonomic

groups intermediate between culti vare and subspecies?also appears to fit the archaeological evidence. Again, the approach has been first to identify complexes specifically associated with

Figure 5. This reconstruction of the distribu tion of the three major dialects of Aymara in the period a:d. 1000, extrapolated backward in

time from modern dialects identified by Briggs (1976), supports archaeological evidence re

garding Tiwanaku's development. The three distinct dialects?northern (dark color), southern (light color)t and intermediate (me dium color)?correspond to three phases in the

growth of the Tiwanaku polity. The extrapo lation is based on our recent study of Aymara place-names (Bird et al., unpubl.), which ex

panded the external boundaries of the three dialects considerably beyond their present limits.

the later groups, particularly the Inca, and then to examine the ancestors of these complexes and other non-Inca

complexes to determine whether discrete identifiable components can be subsequently correlated with Ti wanaku (Bird 1970; Browman and Bird 1978; Bird et al., in press). Two clusters of maize races have tenta

tively been associated with pre-Inca groups: the central Andean maize

complex and the south Andean flint

complex (Goodman and Bird 1977; Bird and Goodman 1977). The gen eral areas where current herbaria

specimens have been recorded for these two maize complexes are shown in Figure 6 (Brieger et al. 1958;

Grobman et al. 1961; Ramirez et al.

1960; Timothy et al. 1961).

Demonstrating that the current dis tribution of maize races is related to Tiwanaku influence will be difficult, owing to the very important role of the Inca in borrowing and distrib

uting maize races from Bolivia and to

subsequent colonial and modern

dispersion. Nevertheless, the patterns of distribution seen in Figure 6 ap pear to replicate closely the political patterns of the Andes of A.D. 750 as seen in Figure 4. This preliminary hypothesis must be tested more

thoroughly, but it is encouraging that the patterns of distribution of the

most socially significant domesticated food plant parallel the linguistic and archaeological evidence.

The lesson of Tiwanaku This picture of the importance of Tiwanaku has been painted with a broad brush, and further research is

necessary to test the validity of our reconstruction and to draw in the finer details. The altiplano is impor tant for economic prehistorians be




cause it appears to manifest a mode of

plant and animal domestication quite different from that found initially in the Old World. Moreover, Tiwana ku's use of religious and economic factors as integrative mechanisms contrasts markedly with the strong political centralization of the syn chronie Wari conquest state. Both empires offer valuable additions to the body of data through which we are attempting to understand the in ternal evolutionary processes of

pristine states. Combination of models from allied fields such as ar

chaeobotany, archaeozoology, and

linguistics can yield much more dy namic models, although we are pain fully aware that utmost caution must be observed to avoid simplistic cor relations of race, language, and cul ture.

Continuing research at Tiwanaku, sponsored by the Instituto Nacional de Arqueolog?a of Bolivia under the

guidance of Dr. Carlos Ponce San gines, involves a number of collabo rative projects, including surveys using proton magnetometers and electrical resistivity techniques, re

mote-sensing and imagery analysis using data from the ERTS III satellite, new microtechniques for the recovery and identification of floral and faunal materials, and a variety of trace-ele ment studies that help to pinpoint the

origins of exotic trade goods and to reconstruct technology. Tiwanaku is an exciting laboratory experiment. Archaeological studies in the Old World have provided one set of an swers to the question, What happens when human population reaches a critical density? Tiwanaku offers new answers to consider in the recon struction of indigenous sociological evolutionary processes.

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new light on andean tiwanaku

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