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The Tiwanaku polity ( or Tiahuanacu) was a Pre-Columbian polity in western Bolivia based in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Tiwanaku was one of the most significant Andean civilizations. Its influence extended into present-day Peru and Chile and lasted from around 600 to 1000. Its capital was the monumental city of Tiwanaku, located at the center of the polity's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. This area has clear evidence for large-scale agricultural production on raised fields that probably supported the urban population of the capital. Researchers debate whether these fields were administered by a bureaucratic state (top-down) or through a federation of communities with local autonomy (bottom-up; see review of debate in Janusek 2004:57-73). Tiwanaku was once thought to be an expansive military empire, based mostly on comparisons to the later Inca Empire. However, recent research suggests that labelling Tiwanaku as an empire or even a state may be misleading. Tiwanaku is missing a number of features traditionally used to define archaic states and empires: there is no defensive architecture at any Tiwanaku site or changes in weapon technology, there are no princely burials or other evidence of a ruling dynasty or a formal social hierarchy, no evidence of state-maintained roads or outposts, and no markets.
Tiwanaku was a multi-cultural network of powerful lineages that brought people together to build large monuments. These work feasts integrated people in powerful ceremonies, and this was probably the central dynamic that attracted people from hundreds of kilometers away, who may have traveled there as part of llama caravans to trade, make offerings, and honor the gods. Tiwanaku grew into the Andes' most important pilgrimage destination and one of the continent's largest Pre-Columbian cities, reaching a maximum population of 10,000 to 20,000 around 800.
Outside of the core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin, there were Tiwanaku colonies on the coast of Peru, where highland people imitated Tiwanaku temples and ceramics, and cemeteries in northern Chile with elaborate grave goods in the Tiwanaku style. Despite the clear connections to these enclaves, there is little evidence that Tiwanaku leaders controlled the territory or people in between, that is, its territory was not contiguous. With a few important exceptions, Tiwanaku's influence outside the Lake Titicaca Basin was "soft power" that blossomed into a powerful, widespread, and enduring cultural hegemony.
The city of Tiwanaku lies at an altitude of roughly above sea level, making it the highest state capital of the ancient world.
Tiwanaku's influence, most clearly documented by the presence of its decorated ceramics, expanded into the Yungas and influenced many other cultures in Peru, Bolivia, and northern Argentina and Chile. Some statues at Tiwanaku were taken from other regions, where the stones were placed in a subordinate position to the Gods of the Tiwanaku.Blom, Deborah E. and John W. Janusek. "Making Place: Humans as Dedications in Tiwanaku", World Archaeology (2004): 123–141. Archaeologists have documented Tiwanaku ceramics at a large number of sites in and beyond the Lake Titicaca Basin, attesting to the expansive influence of Tiwanaku symbols and attached messages of power.
The population grew rapidly between 600 and 800, the site became an important regional power in the southern Andes. William H. Isbell states that "Tiahuanaco underwent a dramatic transformation between 600 and 700 that established new monumental standards for civic architecture and greatly increased the resident population".Isbell, William H.; "Wari and Tiwanaku - International Identities in the Central Andean Middle Horizon", 731–751. Early estimates suggested the city covered approximately 6.5 square kilometers at with 15,000 to 30,000 inhabitants. More recent surveys estimate the site's maximum size between 3.8 and 4.2 square kilometers and a population of 10,000 to 20,000. Instead of a large permanent population, the number of people at Tiwanaku probably fluctuated dramatically depending on the season as people made long visits to participate in work parties and festivals.
In the rest of the southern Lake Titicaca Basin, hundreds of smaller settlements have been found. Some of the largest and most important were Lukurmata, Qeya Kuntu, Kirawi, Waka Kala, Sonaji, Kala Uyuni, and Khonkho Wankane.
Tiwanaku established several colonies as far as 300 km away. One of the better researched is the colony in Moquegua Valley in Peru, which is 150 km from lake Titicaca and flourished between 400 and 1100. This colony was an agricultural and mining center, producing copper and silver. Experience on the Frontier - A Tiwanaku Colony's Shifts Over Time Small colonies were also established in Chile's Azapa Valley.
As the population grew, occupational niches developed, and people began to specialize in certain skills. There was an increase in , who worked in pottery, jewelry and textiles. Like the later Incas, the Tiwanaku had few commercial or market institutions. Instead, the culture relied on elite redistribution.Smith, Michael E. (2004), "The Archaeology of Ancient Economies", Annu. Rev. Anthrop. 33: 73–102. In this view of Tiwanaku as a bureaucratic state, elites controlled the economic output but were expected to provide each commoner with all the resources needed to perform his or her function. Selected occupations include agriculturists, herders, pastoralism, etc. Such separation of occupations was accompanied by hierarchichal stratification.Bahn, Paul G.; Lost Cities, New York, Welcome Rain, 1999. The elites gained their status by control of the surplus of food obtained from all regions, which they then redistributed among all the people. Control of llama herds became very significant to Tiwanaku. The animals were essential for transporting staple and prestige goods.
Covering approximately 200 km, the Titicaca Basin is the most productive environment in the area, with predictable and abundant rainfall due to the presence of Lake Titicaca. This body of water provides a warmer temperature and more humid environment. To the east, the Altiplano is an area of very dry arid land. The Titicaca Basin also provides a unique landscape with many sources of water ranging from natural springs to large rivers like the Tiwanaku River. The abundance of water resources were crucial to the development of the Tiwanaku since they provided large areas of fertile land that the Tiwanaku culture developed and expanded into farming spaces using large irrigation projects like raised fields, terraces, and qochas.
Artificially raised planting mounds were separated by shallow canals filled with water. The canals supply moisture for growing crops, but they also absorb heat from solar radiation during the day. This heat is gradually emitted during the bitterly cold nights and provided thermal insulation against the endemic frost in the region. Traces of similar landscape management have been found in the Llanos de Moxos region (Amazonian flood plains of the Moxos). Over time, the canals also were used to farm edible fish. The resulting canal sludge from small aquatic plants was dredged for fertilizer, continuously providing nutrient-rich soil for crops.
Though labor-intensive, a suka qullu produces impressive yields. While traditional agriculture in the region typically yields 2.4 metric tons of potatoes per hectare, and modern agriculture (with artificial fertilizers and pesticides) yields about 14.5 metric tons per hectare, suka qullu agriculture yields an average of 21 tons per hectare. Modern agricultural researchers have re-introduced the technique of suka qullu. Significantly, the experimental suka qullu fields recreated in the 1980s by University of Chicago's Alan Kolata and Oswaldo Rivera suffered only a 10% decrease in production following a 1988 freeze that killed 70-90% of the rest of the region's production.Kolata, Alan L.; Valley of the Spirits - A Journey into the Lost Realm of the Aymara, Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley and Sons, 1996.
While impressive yields are possible in experiments, these fields are vulnerable to potato parasites and if used continuously, are less efficient than traditional rain-fed fields. This led independent researchers like Bandy (2005) to suggest that raised fields were not in fact hyper-productive, noting that local people did not continue using them once experiments and development programs ended in the 1990s.Bandy, Matthew (2005), "Energetic efficiency and political expediency in Titicaca Basin raised field agriculture", Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 24, 271–296. Instead, they were used on a larger scale planting since they could be planted and harvested before other fields. This essentially allowed for two harvests per year: one for hosting feasts and the other for daily consumption. Coordinating this labor schedule was a key activity for leading families at Tiwanaku because they had to attract volunteers to work the raised fields in addition to their own fields.
This lends greater support to alternative theories of collapse that suggest internal social dynamics led to Tiwanaku's demise. Some areas of the capital show signs of intentional destruction, though this could have taken place at any time. Monolithic gates, like Gateway of the Sun, were tipped over and broken. By the end of Tiwanaku V period the Putuni complex was burned and food storage jars smashed. This indicates an event of destruction, followed by abandonment of the site. Colonies in Moquegua and on Isla del Sol were also abandoned around this time. The Role of Silver Ore Reduction in Tiwanaku State Expansion Into Puno Bay, Peru
It has been conjectured that the collapse of the Tiwanaku empire caused a southward migratory wave leading to a series of changes in Mapuche society in Chile.Tom Dillehay; Pino Quivira, Mario; Bonzani, Renée; Silva, Claudia; Wallner, Johannes; Le Quesne, Carlos (2007), Cultivated wetlands and emerging complexity in south-central Chile and long distance effects of climate change, Antiquity, 81 (2007), 949–960 This explains how the Mapuche language obtained many loanwords from Puquina language including antu (sun), calcu (warlock), cuyen (moon), chadi (salt) and ñuque (mother). Tom Dillehay and co-workers suggest that the decline of Tiwanaku would have led to the spread of agricultural techniques into Mapuche lands in Zona Sur. These techniques include the of Budi Lake and the canalized fields found in Lumaco. Some aspects of Andean religion among Mapuches and have also been suggested to be linked to an influence from Tiwanaku.
The Gateway of the Sun is a monolithic structure of regular, non-monumental size. Its dimensions suggest that other regularly sized buildings existed at the site. It was found at Kalasasaya, but due to the similarity of other gateways found at Pumapunku, it is thought to have been originally part of a series of doorways there. It is recognized for its singular, great frieze. This is thought to represent a main deity figure surrounded by either calendar signs or natural forces for agricultural worship. Along with Viracocha, another statue is in the Gateway of the Sun. This statue is believed to be associated with the weather:
It has twelve faces covered by a solar mask, and at the base thirty running or kneeling figures. Some scientists believe that this statue is a representation of the calendar with twelve months and thirty days in each month.
Other evidence points to a system of ancestor worship at Tiwanaku. The preservation, use, and reconfiguration of mummy bundles and skeletal remains, as with the later Inca, may suggest that this is the case. Later cultures within the area made use of large "above ground burial chambers for the social elite... known as "chullpa". Similar, though smaller, structures were found within the site of Tiwanaku.
Kolata suggests that, like the later Inca, the inhabitants of Tiwanaku may have practiced similar rituals and rites in relation to the dead. The Akapana East Building has evidence of ancestor burial. The human remains at Akapana East seem to be less for show and more for proper burial. The skeletons show many cut marks that were most likely made by defleshing or excarnation after death. The remains were then bundled up and buried rather than left out in the open.
The Tiwanaku conducted human sacrifices on top of a building known as the Akapana. People were disemboweled and torn apart shortly after death and laid out for all to see. It is speculated that this ritual was a form of dedication to the gods. The type of human sacrifice included victims being hacked in pieces, dismembered, exposed to the elements and carnivores before being deposited in trash. Research showed that one man who was sacrificed was not a native to the Titicaca Basin, leaving room to think that sacrifices were most likely of people originally from other societies.
The quarries that supplied the stone blocks for Tiwanaku lie at significant distances from this site. The red sandstone used in this site's structures has been determined by petrographic analysis to come from a quarry away – a remarkable distance considering that the largest of these stones weighs 131 .Ponce Sanginés, C. and G. M. Terrazas, 1970, Acerca De La Procedencia Del Material Lítico De Los Monumentos De Tiwanaku, publication no. 21, Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Bolivia. The green andesite stones that were used to create the most elaborate carvings and monoliths originate from the Copacabana peninsula, located across Lake Titicaca. One theory is that these giant andesite stones, which weigh over 40 tons, were transported some across Lake Titicaca on , then laboriously dragged another to the city.Harmon, P.; 2002, "Experimental Archaeology - Interactive Dig, Archaeology Magazine, "Online Excavations" web page, Archaeology magazine.
Tiwanaku sculpture is comprised typically of blocky, column-like figures with huge, flat square eyes, and detailed with shallow relief carving. They are often holding ritual objects, such as the Ponce Monolith or the Bennett Monolith. Some have been found holding severed heads, such as the figure on the Akapana, who possibly represents a puma-shaman. These images suggest the culture practiced ritual human beheading. As additional evidence, headless skeletons have been found under the Akapana.
The effigy objects typically depicted herders, trophy heads, sacrificial victims, and felines, such as puma and . Such small, portable objects of ritual religious meaning were a key to spreading religion and influence from the main site to the satellite centers. They were created in wood, engraved bone, and cloth and included incense burners, carved wooden hallucinogenic snuff tablets, and human portrait vessels. Like those of the Moche culture, Tiwanaku portraits expressed individual characteristics. One of the best collections of Tiwanaku human effigy vessels was found on Pariti Island, a pilgrimage center in Lake Titicaca. These vessels bear individualistic human likenesses and reveal much information about Tiwanaku clothing and jewellery styles. Radiocarbon dating revealed that they were interred in the ground between 900 and 1050, so they were probably broken as part of a ritual abandonment of the island's temple by local elites and pilgrims during the collapse of Tiwanaku.
While Andean copper mining and metallurgy predates by more than a millenium the Tiwanaku polity,
The Tiwanaku created a powerful ideology, using previous Andean icons that were widespread throughout their sphere of influence. They used extensive trade routes and shamanistic art. Tiwanaku art consisted of legible, outlined figures depicted in curvilinear style with a naturalistic manner, while Wari art used the same symbols in a more abstract, rectilinear style with a militaristic style.
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