Tiwanaku and Its Precursors: Recent Research and Emerging Perspectives

Pottery production, regional exchange, and state collapse during the Middle Horizon (A.D.500–1000): LA-ICP-MS analyses of Tiwanaku pottery in the Moquegua Valley, Peru

“…The nature and workings of the Tiwanaku state have been subject to considerable scholarly debate since the late 19th century but increasingly researchers agree that the Tiwanaku state was both powerful and hierarchical, and that elites manipulated existing Andean concepts of reciprocity and social organization to draw together local groups and assert authority over the region (Albarracin-Jordan 1996;Goldstein 2005;Janusek 2004aJanusek , 2004bJanusek , 2013Kolata 1993bKolata , 2003McAndrews et al 1997;Squier 1877;Stanish 2003Stanish , 2013.…”

Craft Production, Exchange, and Political Power in the Pre-Incaic Andes

“…A flood of recent research in the last two decades has clarified our understanding of what was, at one time, the poorly understood prehistory of the Titicaca Basin (see recent summaries in Goldstein, 2005;Janusek, 2004a;Stanish, 2003). In particular, we can now more completely address the rise of Tiwanaku, one of two expansive Middle Horizon states in the Andes.…”

“…Archaeologists usually define the Formative (divided into Early, Middle, and Late, see Table 1) in the Titicaca Basin by the first appearance of ceramics in settled agricultural villages through the emergence of the Tiwanaku state by A.D. 500 (Bandy, 2005a;Janusek, 2004a;Stanish, 2003). Evidence of exchange in the Early Formative includes sodalite beads (Browman, 1981(Browman, , 1998, obsidian from the Chivay source (Burger et al, 2000, p. 348), sea shell (Bandy, 2005a, p. 95), and, very rarely, small fragments of gold, silver, and copper (Bandy, 2005a).…”

Spatial Configuration in Tiwanaku Art: A Review of Stone Carved Imagery and Staff Gods

“…Around AD 700, Tiwanaku experienced significant changes in monumental architecture and usage of ceremonial spaces, a shift probably linked with the sudden growth of its population as well as the rise in power of its local elite (Ponce-Sanginés 1981; Couture 2002Couture , 2004Kolata 2003;Isbell & Vranich 2004: 172-175;Janusek 2004bJanusek : 203-226, 2006; see also Vranich 2009: 22-30). The Semi-Subterranean Temple and the Kalasasaya complex, both acquired new meaning during this period, their symbolic spaces gradually being used by elite lineages to legitimize their power (Kolata 2004: 130).…”