Paul S. Goldstein

Tiwanaku Temples and State Expansion: A Tiwanaku Sunken-Court Temple in Moquegua, Peru

Until recently, an entrenched view of Tiwanaku expansion in thesouth-centralAndes as a primarilyeultic phenomenon precluded discussion of state-built ceremonialfacilities outside of Tiwanakus immediate hinterland of the Bolivian altiplano. However, recent research in the Tiwanaku periphery has found specialized ceremonial architecture that reglects the solidification of central control and the development of a provincial system. Excavation at the Omo M10 site, in Moquegua, Peru, has exposed the only Tiwanaku sunken-court temple structure and cut-stone architecture known outside of the Titicaca Basin. A reconstruction of the Omo temple complex demonstrates direct parallels with Tiwanaku ceremonial centers of the altiplano in architecturalform and ceremonial activities. This suggests that patterns of state-centered ceremony and peripheral administration underwent a dramatic transformation with the explosive expansion of the Tiwanaku state during the period known as Tiwanaku V(A.D. 725-1000).

Exotic Goods and Everyday Chiefs: Long-Distance Exchange and Indigenous Sociopolitical Development in the South Central Andes

Long-distance exchange of exotic preciosities, while it can occur in any sociopolitical context, may be associated with both chiefly formation and state hegemony. In the south central Andes, shared stylistic elements in early complex societies of Paracas-Nasca on the Peruvian south coast and Pukara in the altiplano suggest their contact via intermediate areas. Unfortunately, interpretations of the interaction of these great traditions tend to neglect indigenous sociopolitical development in regions between the two culture areas. Recent systematic survey in one such intermediate region, Perus Moquegua Valley, has shed light on an indigenous pre-Tiwanaku culture with distinctive regional settlement patterns, complex mortuary practices, and a local ceramic tradition known as Huaracane (385 cal B. C-cal A. D. 340). Surface collections and test excavations confirm a minimal presence of exotic Pukara and Paracas-Nasca ceramics and textiles in association with elite local residential contexts and a late Huaracane mortuary tradition known as “boot tombs” that appears after 170 cal B. C. As there is no general emulation of foreign styles, domestic activities, or practices, an agency-oriented local perspective is favored over globalist colonial or clientage models to explain the role of exotica in a climate of competitive sociopolitical development.

Floodplain Development, El Niño, and Cultural Consequences in a Hyperarid Andean Environment

Abstract Using field-mapping, remote-sensing (ASTER, aerial photography), and GIS/GPS, we identified and analyzed reach-scale geomorphic responses to contemporary floods along a 20-km valley length in hyperarid southern Peru. We combined these data with alluvial stratigraphy of remnant terrace patches recording late Holocene aggradation and incision. In this manner we ascertained how climate change, especially the occurrence of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), affects the magnitude and frequency of large floods at mid-elevations of southern Perus Atacama Desert, and we documented the geomorphic effects of large floods on stream channel properties, especially the large-scale floodplain erosion and channel enlargement occurring during these large ENSO-related floods. Reach-averaged channel widening of ∼30 m occurs during large ENSO-related floods, with floodplain erosion rates of 2 ha/river km commonly occurring. Recovery occurs in two stages: channel narrowing requires several decades of lateral bar development which can ultimately aggrade sufficiently for complete floodplain development to occur. There was a similar response to ENSO floods during the late Holocene, and our radiocarbon dating of alluvial surfaces, combined with an ASTER-DEM of the floodplain, indicates that ∼80 percent of the floodplain is younger than at least 550 14C years. We conclude that the lateral erosion and recovery cycle related to ENSO floods could have been a critical factor for prehistoric societies dependent on floodplain agriculture. If cultural systems can maintain pace with geomorphic change in these irrigated floodplain systems, the loss of arable land may not be critical. However, severe social stresses may result if episodes of accelerated floodplain loss outpace both natural recovery and social adaptation.

From Stew-Eaters to Maize-Drinkers

In this paper, I consider the close correlation of dramatic changes in culinary traditions with the political development of one of the New World’s earliest expansive state societies. A comparison of Tiwanaku’s ceramic assemblages with those of its antecedents, as well as settlement pattern and household archaeology and preliminary isotopic data on diet, suggest that the Tiwanaku phenomenon was accompanied by revolutionary new patterns in food, drink, and daily domestic life. In examining these changes in the Tiwanaku core region and in its peripheries my goal is to consider the intersection of shifts in culinary traditions with changes not only in domestic and political economy, but in the social and cultural realities and identities signified by quotidian daily life. I argue that radical culinary change was a crucial aspect of the incorporation of disparate peoples into the Tiwanaku civilization. The growth of Tiwanaku as a polity and a shared corporate identity was accompanied by three simultaneous and related phenomena: 1) the development and rapid diffusion of a hitherto unseen functional assemblage dedicated to preparing and serving maize beer, 2) the successful long-term colonization of maize-producing regions, and 3) the promulgation of a shared corporate identity among confederated ethnic groups and clans linked by a common ideology. This incorporation appears to have been largely consensual, rather than coerced, and the principal culinary factor was a mania for maize beer that took root everywhere Tiwanaku influence was accepted.

Diet and gender in the Tiwanaku colonies: Stable isotope analysis of human bone collagen and apatite from Moquegua, Peru

OBJECTIVES Gender and other facets of social identity play important roles in the organization of complex societies. This study reconstructs dietary practices within the Middle Horizon (AD 500-1000) Tiwanaku colonies in southern Peru to increase our knowledge of gendered patterns of consumption within this early expansive state. METHODS We use stable isotope analysis of 43 human bone samples representing 14 females, 20 males, 8 juveniles, and 1 indeterminate individual recovered from burial excavations at the sites of Rio Muerto and Omo in the Moquegua Valley. Data are contextualized by comparisons with previously published Tiwanaku isotope data from the period. RESULTS Our results find mean values of δ(13) Capatite = -7.3 ± 1.6% (N = 36, 1SD), δ(13) Ccollagen  = -12.3 ± 1.5% (N = 43, 1SD), and δ(15) Ncollagen  = 8.4 ± 1.6% (N = 43, 1SD). Between the sexes, Mann-Whitney U tests demonstrate significant differences in δ(13) Ccollagen (U = 74, P = 0.021), but no differences in δ(13) Capatite (U = 58, P = 0.095) or δ(15) Ncollagen (U = 116, P = 0.755) values. CONCLUSIONS These data indicate relatively high C4 plant consumption among the Tiwanaku colonies, and support paleobotanical and archaeological evidence that maize (Zea mays) was the staple crop. Dietary values are similar overall between the sexes, but significantly higher δ(13) Ccollagen values in males is consistent with a model of gendered norms of consumption similar to that of the later Inca (AD 1438-1533), where males consumed more maize than females, often in the form of beer (chicha). Results provide new insights on social dynamics within the Tiwanaku colonies and suggest the increased importance maize consumption for males during the Tiwanaku expansion.

Multiethnicity, pluralism, and migration in the south central Andes: An alternate path to state expansion

The south central Andes is known as a region of enduring multiethnic diversity, yet it is also the cradle of one the South America’s first successful expansive-state societies. Social structures that encouraged the maintenance of separate identities among coexistent ethnic groups may explain this apparent contradiction. Although the early expansion of the Tiwanaku state (A.D. 600–1000) is often interpreted according to a centralized model derived from Old World precedents, recent archaeological research suggests a reappraisal of the socio-political organization of Tiwanaku civilization, both for the diversity of social entities within its core region and for the multiple agencies behind its wider program of agropastoral colonization. Tiwanaku’s sociopolitical pluralism in both its homeland and colonies tempers some of archaeology’s global assumptions about the predominant role of centralized institutions in archaic states.