The Location of Lake Titicaca’s Coastal Area During the Tiwanaku and Inca Periods: Methodology and Strategies of Underwater Archaeology

Abstract

For more than 30 years, numerous research projects have revealed the dense and complex human settlement of the lacustrine basin of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and Peru. Physical evidence of such establishments has been discovered in plains, valleys, and highlands connected to the lake. These remains confirm human occupation and development in this environment, particularly during the Tiwanaku (AD 500-1150) and Inca (AD 1400-1532) Periods. The research project discussed in this paper includes consideration of submerged areas through underwater archaeology. This investigation involves analysis of two areas that have evidence of ancient human occupation but are poorly documented: the coastal and lacustrine regions. Due to its dominance in the landscape, Lake Titicaca has always been a major feature in the life and identity of populations of this vicinity. These inhabitants have developed socio-economic and ritual behaviours directly associated with the lake that have left cultural and material prints that are the foci of the present study.

The context and meaning of an intact Inca underwater offering from Lake Titicaca

“…Subsequent investigations of this reef by professional diving expeditions between 1988 and 1992 yielded a wealth of pre-Inca and Inca ritual offerings consisting of stone boxes containing miniature figurines made of gold, silver and Spondylus shell (Ponce Sanginés et al 1992;Reinhard 1992). More recent underwater excavations at this location have confirmed the importance of this reef as a subaquatic ceremonial locus during the expansion of the pre-Inca Tiwanaku State (AD 800-1000) (Delaere 2016;. Given the fluctuations of Lake Titicaca's level over time (Abbott et al 1997;Weide et al 2017), there must be a wealth of archaeological sites below the current waterline, but, at the time of the Khoa expeditions, the Khoa reef was the only known underwater offering site.…”

“…Underwater excavations at Puncu on the southern shore of the Island of the Sun indicate that the lake level during the Inca period (after AD 1440) was the same as in 2014 (Delaere 2017). The present-day natural landscape was therefore comparable to that encountered by the Inca religious specialists during the offering ceremony.…”

Underwater ritual offerings in the Island of the Sun and the formation of the Tiwanaku state

“…Khoa preserves evidence of activities carried out in relation to other submerged as well as nonsubmerged spaces. The finding of contemporary submerged Tiwanaku sites such as Punku, a port situated in the southeastern shore of the Island of the Sun, suggests that when the offerings were made, a portion of the Khoa Reef might have been above water (21). Indeed, the Tiwanaku's presence in the Island of the Sun was substantial and included more than a dozen sites, including Chucaripupata, a puma-shaped ceremonial complex situated near the northwestern shore (53).…”

“…In this paper, we report recent archaeological research from the Khoa Reef, a submerged offering location that contains evidence of Tiwanaku (500-1100 CE) ceremonies (21). We use the evidence from the Khoa Reef to infer the structure of religious ceremonies related to Lake Titicaca and discuss the roles of ritual and religion in integrating and reproducing this primary state formation.…”

Reconstructing two millennia of copper and silver metallurgy in the Lake Titicaca region (Bolivia/Peru) using trace metals and lead isotopic composition

“…The first core, Chua1 (S16 12.917 W68 46.113, 28 m water depth, length: 161 cm), was retrieved in the deepest trough of the southern basin (Lago Menor) in January 2014. The second one, core IS2 (S15 57.857 W69 13.644, 19.4 m water depth, length: 765 mm), was collected in the northern basin (Lago Mayor) in June 2014, to the north-east of the Island of the Sun, near the Tiwanaku and Inca offerings site of Khoa reef (Delaere, 2017;Delaere et al, 2019). All details for core splitting and subsampling are given elsewhere (Guédron et al, 2020(Guédron et al, , 2017.…”