The Tiwanaku “Empire”

Introduction

1. After AD 400 Tiwanaku power and influence spread from its local core area south of Lake Titicaca, through the entire Basin and beyond.

2. Tiwanaku expansion was not based on centralized military imperialism alone. It depended on a combination of direct administration, colonization, trade links, ideological primacy and voluntary partnerships with peripheral elites.

3. Thus, important fertile areas at lower levels were brought under direct political colonization (Cochabamba and Moquegua), while areas further field such as the San Pedro de Atacama Oasis settlements in Chile appear to have been less coercively incorporated into a wider economic-ideological sphere centered at Tiwanaku.

4. The Tiwanaku “Empire” that ultimately emerged incorporated a large variety of ecological zones, each with their own distinct cultures, populations, and resources. The yungas of the Andean slopes differed on the eastern and western sides of the Andes (tropical in the east where coca was the chief crop, semi-arid in west where maize was grown), the altiplano near Tiwanaku held vastly greater potential for intensive (raised field) agriculture that did the bleak area to the south, Lake Titicaca itself provided a source of fishing and water fowl not matched anywhere in the region, while the desert oases of the Pacific Coast and the Atacama Desert were isolated areas of high productivity and mineral mining in otherwise totally arid land. The only way that these diverse zones could be connected was by the operation of a centrally controlled long-distance camel caravan system.

Tiwanaku Dominant Ideology

1. Ideology and supernatural belief played a major role in political structure at Tiwanaku as in the Andes generally. After AD 400 the major symbols of Tiwanaku dominant ideology as seen in the sculpture of the ceremonial center diffused throughout the areas of Tiwanaku influence showing the spread of the prestige of central ideology. This is especially apparent in elite ceramics bearing ideological iconography, depictions of the “Gateway God” and his attendants, and the shamanistic ritual complex reflected by the llama figurines, snuff trays and pipes portrayed on the great monolithic figures and recovered from Tiwanaku burials. This indicates adoption of Tiwanaku ideology and the influence that came with it by local elites all over the southern Andes in the period AD 400-1000.

2. Accompanying this diffusion outward of central Tiwanaku ideology and its symbols, the Tiwanaku polity also used religious/ideological subjugation of regional ideologies to stress its political power. This was a common practice in the Andes where local huacas (sacred places and objects) were appropriated by the conquerors and incorporated into their own ideological systems. This at the same time showed the dominance of the central ideology and lessened the possibility of resistance stemming from desecration of local religion by giving the subjugated systems an important place in the wider ideological system of the expanding empire. Evidence of this practice is seen in the presence at Tiwanaku of stone plaques carved with the iconography of Pukara, the center that dominated the northern Titicaca Basin in its early period prior to the rise of Tiwanaku.

The Yungas Zone Colonies

1. Tiwanaku established direct colonial rule on the mid-mountain valleys adjacent to the Titicaca Basin on both sides of the Andes. The chief purpose of these imposed centers of central rule was to control the primary agricultural resources of the two areas - coca in the east, and maize in the west. Given the high productivity of the altiplano raised field complexes, these crops were not needed for subsistence. However, they were intensively used as ritual items, in the sacrificial offerings and feasts that were central to religious practice and the ceremonial events through which the Tiwanaku elite manifested its power and bound its subjects to central power. These crops were thus vital to the existence of the imperial socio/political order whose leaders established direct control over their production zones.

2. Evidence for Tiwanaku expansion comes from the coastal valleys of Northern Chile, the middle valleys of southernmost Peru and the valleys of the Cochabamba Valley of eastern Bolivia. The Chilean evidence mostly derives from Tiwanaku burial material, the Peruvian from architecture, settlement and burial, and the Bolivian from burial and survey.

3. The best information derives from the Moquegua Valley of southern Peru. Here a typical highland administrative center with its approach plazas and focal ceremonial platform with sunken court and standing monolith was the center of government for a complex of villages where house clusters surrounded plazas as in the highland towns and the surrounding agricultural area. An extensive area of irrigated fields in the lower, more level part of the Moquegua Valley was watered by long canals and worked by the inhabitants of the nearby villages.

4. It appears that an early intrusive colony protected by military force gradually evolved into a wider area of Tiwanaku rule in which highland intruders and local inhabitants gradually merged into a peaceful agricultural colonial population controlled ultimately from Tiwanaku but also gaining the benefits of effective productivity from the extensive state-operated agricultural system.

5. The interplay between center and colony involved caravans descending to Moquegua (and other colonies) carrying finished elite items of ceramic, metal, and textiles and the ritual items of Tiwanaku ideology that were used as prestige items by local elites. In return the caravans took maize and coca and raw mineral and metal ores to the altiplano to serve the Tiwanaku ritual and elite craft production systems.

5. The Moquegua colony expanded from an early rather localized complex centered at the site of Omo around AD 4/500 to a much more formal presence after AD 700 with the addition of major hydraulic systems in the Moquegua Valley. These two phases of growth were interrupted by a temporary invasion and occupation by the northern Wari state (see later lecture).

6. Archaeologically, other than in its architecture, the Tiwanaku presence in Moquegua and in the other coastal and yunga colonies is best seen in the elaborate ceramics vessels bearing the iconography of central Tiwanaku ideology. These include jars decorated with depictions of the Gateway God and his attendants (also found in textile), and “portrait” jars of the Tiwanaku elite.

Tiwanaku influence at the periphery

1. The archaeological presence of Tiwanaku in the peripheral areas such as San Pedro de Atacama, the Quebrada de Humahuaca and the Central Chilean valleys differs from that in the yungas described in the previous section. Here Tiwanaku presence is mostly limited to the symbols of Tiwanaku ideology and ritual. These are almost entirely restricted to burial contexts reflecting the presence of small numbers of Tiwanaku settlers and local rulers who had adopted the political ideological identity of the altiplano. Elsewhere in these same areas the archaeological picture is one of local cultures.

2. Tiwanaku artifacts found at the periphery include:

fine textiles

ritual drinking cups

precious metal artifacts

feather work

the paraphernalia of ritual hallucinogen consumption

3. It appears from this pattern that Tiwanaku influence on the periphery was one of a prestigious and powerful central power in contact with distant areas for economic purposes. Its control of the long-distance caravan network that integrated this network relied on local elites adopting the prestigious ideology of the central power in order to boost their own influence. This was not military conquest as in the yungas colonies but a system whereby local rulers “bought in” to the wider economic/political system as junior participants.

4. The economic network centered at Tiwanaku was activated by intensive caravan traffic across the altiplano. The origins of the traffic go back to the first domestication of the llama many centuries earlier when local caravans linked ethnically similar small settlements located in the isolated areas that were suitable for permanent settlement. Tiwanaku expanded the scope of such informal interaction by establishing state-controlled herds and much longer-distance caravans that brought needed commodities from as far south as northwest Argentina and central Chile to the Titicaca Basin.

5. Commodities transported through this network included:

Basalt from the mines around Qeremita on Lake Poopó (for tools and weapons)

Minerals from the Atacama Desert near San Pedro (Copper, silver)