In 1549, when the Spanish were marching in search of the Inca capital of Qullasuyu (the empire’s southern part), they found some mysterious ruins in the southern shores of Titicaca Lake, a place that was considered sacred for the Aymara (the people that lived in the Altiplano) and Inca. In fact, the Incas claimed that their founding fathers originally came from that area, and that ancient city was said to have settled by the old deity Wiracocha, the famous Staff God. During the colonial era, religious authorities were concerned by heathen practices made there while some of the large megalithic stones were taken to become the foundations for churches and other public buildings in La Paz. In the 19th century, the
libertador Antonio José de Sucre, Bolivia’s first de facto president, ordered raise some of the ruins in honor to the new country. However, in the following decades, while the site attracted attention of several foreign visitors, it was in general viewed negatively by them and Bolivian elites, since it was a viewed as a symbol of the poor, decadent and inferior indigenous peoples that hindered the possibilities to establish a modern country in European standards. Only by the 20th century the area became object of modern archeological studies, particularly in the 1950s when a nationalistic government saw Tiwanaku as a symbol of national pride, the seat of an ancient empire that showed that Bolivia was destined to rise again in glory. By 1980s-1990s, new archeological approaches were developed, this time without the nationalistic tones or the racist views of the past, giving rise to the contemporaneous debate about the nature, organization, expansion and history of this still largely unknown and mysterious ancient civilization.
The Altiplano seems to be an unlikely place for the emergence of a complex and expansive civilization. Situated almost at 4000 mts above the sea level, the environment is quite harsh. Days are warm or even hot, but nights are freezing. During most of the year, the climate is semi-arid, except during few months in the summer when the rains and snowmelt in the surrounding mountains turn the small rivers in seasonal torrents, flooding most of areas around the Titicaca and other smaller lakes within the high plateau. Yet, permanent human inhabitation here can be identified at least from 4000 BCE on, and around 1600-1500 BCE we can find evidence of complex societies, permanent settlements, territoriality and the emergence of ceremonial centers.
Thus, the periodization of Pre-Colombian Altiplano is slightly distinct from the rest of the Andes, with the Formative Period starting roughly at that time and lasting almost two millennia until the next era, when Tiwanaku rose as hegemon. To survive and prosper, these first societies there developed clever economic and social strategies. The most fertile and productive lands were located around the Titicaca and agriculture faced two main challenges there: the altitude and the water management. Few crops could survive in that altitude and the drastic temperature changes during the days, so production was based in few cereals (like quinoa) and tubers (the most famous being potatoes, which may have been first domesticated in this region). To manage with droughts during most of the year and flooding in the summer, these societies developed an agricultural practice called
raised fields (also known as
camellones,
suka kollus or
waru waru), in which cultivation was made in elevations bounded by water-filled ditches to control watering. Likewise, specific knowledge about calendar and seasons was essential to predict longer droughts or more intensive flooding, that was combined with labor organization to ensure the farming in the right seasons and economic distribution/reciprocity. Nonetheless, this highland agriculture was unable to provide the requirements of large and complex societies. Thus, these first Altiplano societies looked for economic diversification, establishing links with the neighboring camelid pastoralism (mainly llamas and alpacas) areas in the
puna, complemented with fishing, hunting, and foraging.
The first complex societies of the Formative period are still largely unknown, but archeologists point that they established a network of small and semi-autonomous villages that surrounded a ceremonial center; their religion seems to be based on fertility cults and depicted images of frogs, lizards and turtles. Around 1000-800 BCE, the first “true” cities appear, based on increased urbanization and the construction of the first public buildings, ceremonial sunken enclosures. While most of these constituted largely autonomous (although economic interdependent) chiefdoms, archeologists and historians identify them as the
Chiripa culture, named after the most researched site from this period. It seems that the Titicaca basin was home of at least eight identified chiefdoms, each centered around a ceremonial center that was surrounded by a cluster of small villages and hamlets. The main city was the only place where we can find monumental architecture, usually a stepped elevated platform associated with a sunken enclosure, all built following the orientation of the largest and most visible mountains around the Altiplano. In the following centuries, the Chiripa culture was dominant power in the region, occupying the southern and west banks of Titicaca; in the far north side, another chiefdom grew in power and influence, developing some distinct cultural aspects identified as the Qaluyu culture, that may have been the responsible for the diffusion of the raised fields; further south in the Altiplano, near Desaguadero river, there was another slightly distinct culture, though still largely unknown, called
Wankarani.
Formative archeological sites around Titicaca lake. From Silverman, I. & Isbell, W. Handbook of South American Archeology.
Around 600 BCE a new religious tradition appeared in the region, called
Yaya-Mama or
Pa’Ajano (respectively, “father-mother” in Quechua and Aymara), that became much influential, changing the religious iconography and ideological foundations of these societies in the Titicaca basin. The cult’s main characteristics were the temple-storage complexes, located in monumental man-made mounds that were combined with a central sunken court; some specific religious paraphernalia and iconography, use of hallucinogenic substances, ceramic trumpets and large monolith stelae that often portrayed a male figure with feline characteristics and associated with head trophies on one side and a female with an alpaca/llama on the other side. The
Yaya-Mama cult became widely influential within few centuries, in a process followed by political changes in the Titicaca. Around 400-300 BCE, the Chiripa culture declined and a new northern polity, based in
Pukura/Pucurá and associated with the cult, became the hegemonic power in the Altiplano.
The Pukura culture introduced many changes in Altiplano’s political and economic structure. The raised-fields technique was fully developed and became consolidated in all Titicaca basin, while at same time they developed new agricultural strategies based on verticality, colonizing nearby regions in lesser altitudes to be able to diversify their crops, particularly with maize (that could not grow in the upper heights), and thus, when combined with fishing and
puna pastoralism, provided an economic surplus that allowed considerable and constant population growth in the Altiplano even during droughts. They also intensified old and established new trade networks with far away areas in the Andes, thus becoming the main commercial hub in the Altiplano and even trying to monopolize some strategic resources (mostly for religious reasons) such as obsidian. To the northwest, there were strong connections with the peoples in Cuzco valleys and possibly even with the Cupisnique culture (the antecessors of the Moche). To the south, there was solid links with the peoples in Arica region and particularly those that lived in the oases within Atacama Desert, who supplied many of the hallucinogenic substances used in religious rituals. But the main trade partners were the
Paracas culture in the east, in the southern Peruvian coastal deserts in Nazca region. In fact, we can see their relationship almost as a dyad: two societies with comparable levels of social organization that were engaged in complementary trade and other forms of interaction, in a synergy that stimulated their own internal developments. Thus, they also shared many cultural features, including the introduction of the Staff God and the emphasis in head trophies.
Around 200-300 CE, the Pukara culture declined and lost much of its former influence, collapsing by 400 CE. Just like in the case of the earlier Chiripa, we are unsure about the specific reasons, tough archeologists often point to possible climate changes since. New and old chiefdoms divided again the Titicaca basin, particularly in its southern side, the most powerful and influential being Sillumocco, Santiago de Huatta, Khonko Wankani and Kala Uyuni. Another growing power was a city called Tiwanaku that eventually became the hegemon over the Altiplano.
The origins and foundation of Tiwanaku are a matter of discussion for archeologists since they first started to study the ruins. The oldest radiocarbon data suggest that the city was already inhabited sometime around 1600 BCE, but most specialists argue that such early date seems unlikely, and most probably Tiwanaku appeared as a modest village sometime between 800-200 BCE; few archeologists suggested that the town was originally two small hamlets that eventually merged. Either way, Tiwanaku was mostly insignificant until around 100 CE, when the first public buildings appeared, but was still seem as a minor town in the southern side of Titicaca, whose main urban center was Kala Uyuni, located 20km north in the Taraco peninsula.
Tiwanaku's original inhabitants are another issue hotly debated, since we simply don’t know who they were, how they called themselves or the city (the modern name comes from Aymara and means “stone center”) and even what language they spoke. Some linguists argue that the Titicaca basin was inhabited by a succession of distinct people, the first ones being the
Uru-speaking peoples that still can be found near the lake; then, the
Puqina (alternatively Puquina or Pukina) became dominant in a period that roughly corresponds to Pukara ascension, and supposedly were still the main ethnicity during Tiwanaku era; after the fall of the latter,
Aymara was the leading language/ethnicity until the Inca (Quechua) conquest. Others point that, most likely, the Altiplano was ever a multiethnic area, and Uru, Puqina and Aymara speakers co-existed in relative harmony for many centuries, including during Tiwanaku’ era.
Either way, by the first centuries CE Tiwanaku became an expanding chiefdom. The
Yaya-Mama tradition was much relevant for giving the religious and ideological foundations, although some aspects were distinct, particularly when considering the town’s oldest surviving building, the semi-subterranean (sunken) temple, which was unorthodoxly built on the plains instead on a specific mound. By 300 CE, Tiwanaku was the rising power in Titicaca basin, slowly surpassing its main competitors while the city was first rebuilt, modifying some of architectonic characteristics (and thus indicating some religious/ideological changes). New temples and other public buildings were erected (such as the Kalasasaya) over old habitation areas, all built according solar and astronomical orientations and surrounded by a circular moat that had defensive and symbolic roles, dividing the sacred core of the city from the outside world. The political landscape also becomes clearer, and the city establish itself as the center of the southern side of the lake, extending its influence over most of the villages and even larger cities such as Lukurmata. Combined with Pukara decline, the trade routes shifted to Tiwanaku, who became the Altiplano’s central llama caravan hub and established solid connections with the oases in southern and western deserts that provided the hallucinogenic substances required for religious rituals.
The Kalasasaya (up) and Sunken Temple (bellow) as reconstructed today. Taken from the internet.
By 600 CE, Tiwanaku was already the dominant power in the Altiplano. The city again passed through a dramatic reconstruction during this century, made during a short period of time, that established most of the existent urban plan. The old temples were rebuilt and expanded and new and mighty ones, such as the massive Akapana pyramid, were built. These architectonical features were representative of the new iconography and religious cult (often called as South Andean Iconographic Series, or SAIS) that rose around that time and eventually set an Andean pattern that marks the Middle Horizon. Tiwanaku turned itself in a pan-regional center, extending its power and influence well beyond the Altiplano.
Tiwanaku expansion is interesting because shed some light in how this empire was organized. In the initial phase, the expansionism seems to have been pushed by an economic strategy based on the verticality and diversification required to prosper during harsh droughts. In this sense, it did not represented a major change from the old Altiplano and Pukara strategies of colonizing new regions and establishing trade routes. The initial Tiwanaku enclaves outside the high plateau were in the neighboring area of Moquequa region, in the Omo site, established within a deliberate colonizing push in direction to lower and fertile lands near the Pacific. The colony supplied mostly maize and mimicked many Tiwanaku architectonical characteristics, but seems to have been largely autonomous. Similar enclaves were also established in the following centuries in Arequipa, Tacna and Arica, tough these sites were somewhat smaller and did not had many stone structures. While certainly we cannot dismiss some form of violence, Altiplano/Tiwanaku colonies seems to have lived in relative harmony with the original inhabitants of these lands, since most of them lived near the ocean and depended on fishing. Thus, none Tiwanaku sites in those areas had defensive structures, but established profitable trade and political links with the original communities. In the trade sphere, Tiwanaku expanded the caravan routes to the
Nazca culture (the successors of the Paracas) and to southern oases in the Atacama, inhabited by the
Kunza/Atacama people, mostly in search of hallucinogenic substances, hardwoods and incenses.
If the economic diversification/verticality was one side of Tiwanaku’s expansion, the religion was another. The SAIS was adopted quickly around 700 CE and represent, in many ways, an effort to syncretize old traditions from the Altiplano with the northern cults, however there is no consensus about the religion’s specific characteristics. We can identify three main characters portrayed: the Staff God, that was the main deity, the Rayed Head (possibly another face or attribute from the first) and several Profile Attendants, who may have represented the months in the solar calendar, which was calculated by observations made in Kalasasaya Temple. Tiwanaku religion also involved intimate rituals that combined ancestral veneration, fertility rites, shamanism practices (using hallucinogenic substances) and stories about mythological zoomorphic figures/priests. The city was the focal point of the cult and thus quickly became a pilgrimage center, attracting people from far away areas that brought their offerings in search of blessings, oracle and calendar services. Caravans, trade, colonies and Tiwanaku regional prestige were important to the SAIS diffusion.
Wari was possibly one of the first foreign cities to adopt the religion and possibly was even involved in defining its canons and standard depictions of the gods, thus turning into the other main SAIS center and the northern counterpart of the cultural patterns that dominated the Middle Horizon.
The Gate of the Sun, displaying the Staff God and other iconographic figures related to SAIS. From Wikipedia.
Thus, more than using coercive means and establishing a solid imperial system, Tiwanaku expansion was pushed mostly by “soft power” strategies. This does not mean that coercion, violence or warfare were not employed when needed – there are several stelae/monolith stones in the site that were actually carved much earlier in other Altiplano towns/cities and were taken possibly by war, tribute or persuasion; points for spears, darts and/or arrows were also found – but Tiwanaku ascension seems to have been relatively peaceful and pushed by economic complementarity and reciprocity, trade, religious influence and prestige. The city led a loosely organized sphere of influence that encompassed many cities within and outside the Altiplano, many of them completely or largely politically autonomous but with strong economic and religious ties.
Around 800 CE, Tiwanaku was in its peak. The city had an estimated between 10-20k inhabitants, most of them dedicated to the religious activities in temples and monuments, civil servants and artisans that produced jewels, textiles, tools and other crafts. Unlike in other urbanized areas in most of the world, most of the population was not concentrated in the larger cities, but in the surrounding countryside where there were many smaller towns, villages and hamlets dedicated to the agricultural work. Between these settlements and the capital, we also had a series of secondary cities, many of them that also included similar monumental stone buildings such as Lukurmata, Putuni, Khonko, Paqchiri and Wankani, all located within 75 km from the capital that shows a clear hierarchical urban structure on the heartland of Tiwanaku’s polity. The government system is largely unknown, but we are almost certain that the city didn’t have some form of monarchy, since we don’t have palaces, royal tombs or statues of rulers; most specialists suggest some form of theocracy (that possibly slowly became more secular as the time progressed) or some form of senate or council ruling the city.
Reconstruction of Tiwanaku's civic-religious center with the main structures. Taken from the internet.
Tiwanaku’s sphere of influence extended over most of the southern-central Andes, though outside the southern Titicaca basin control, if any, was more limited. Tiwanaku was certainly the most powerful polity in the whole Altiplano basin, being able to enforce its power and influence over any other city or polity there, but couldn’t control directly all the high plateau. To the southeast, its influence extended to the Cochabamba valley, but direct control is unlikely; the area was a supplier of maize and its rulers adopted and copied Tiwanaku’s style, iconography and religion. To the south, influence extended to Atacama Desert and some areas in northwest Argentina, mostly result of the increased trade (based on the old caravan routes that existed long before) and international prestige associated with Tiwanaku.
To the west, in Moquegua, Arequipa and Tacna there were several Tiwanaku and other Altiplano colonies, but as said before, they seem to have been largely autonomous. The first two were actually a frontier zone with Wari polity and shows a puzzling relationship between these main superpowers from the Middle Horizon: Tiwanaku’s and Wari’s colonies in Moquegua were really close from each other, in some cases within 10 km and in plain sight, with the first generally occupying lower lands and the latter higher areas. Hostilities appears to have occurred mostly in the initial period (Tiwanaku’s colonists seems to have considered the Wari as “water thieves”, but nonetheless only Wari’s colonies had defensive structures), but afterwards they lived together on common grounds, trading and even intermarrying. An archeologist suggested a quite interestingly comparison that the Tiwanaku-Wari relations were like the contemporaneous Rome-Constantinople affairs in Europe: two highly influential centers, based roughly on the same religious canons, leading its own sphere of influence that occasionally cooperate or competed.
Middle Horizon spheres of influence with the main archeological sites. From Silverman, I. & Isbell, W. Handbook of South American Archeology.
Thus, as said before, Tiwanaku expansionism is baffling because it was not supported by a clear, coercive and extractive imperial system, something that poses some contrast with the other coin from Middle Horizon, Wari. That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t involve some sort of imperialistic policies sometimes, but that Tiwanaku’s influence grew connected with the economic integration, religious and identity mechanisms: the city was truly a cauldron of cultures, identities and ethnicities, all united by a common rituals, economic interdependency, religion and social identity. Tiwanaku was cosmopolitan in its nature, the spiritual and commercial center of a loosely organized sphere of influence that recognized its authority.
After the turn of the millennium, things started to change in the Altiplano, and the following decades may have been some of the most dynamics in Titicaca’s history. While still a powerful polity, Tiwanaku was in a clear stagnation around 1000 CE, when the last monumental building complexes were built (possibly including one of the most recognizable structures, the famous Gate of Sun) and Moquegua colonies became largely independent. Recent studies confirmed that around that time the Altiplano faced an unprecedent drought that may have lasted for decades; Titicaca shores literally receded in many kilometers, leaving the raised fields and entire populations without an adequate water supply. This put a strong strain over the agricultural and, most importantly, the social systems that supported Tiwanaku empire: we must leave aside here monocausal explanations or environmental determinisms. The environmental pressure intensified the long existing social tensions, which in turn led to Tiwanku’s fall and consequent social fragmentation around 1150 CE.
Nonetheless, the last decades of Tiwanaku are still puzzling. There are no signs that Tiwanaku was abandoned abruptly, but gradually; as some neighborhoods were abandoned, other groups moved to these areas, often on a temporary basis. In few elite areas, some residences, temples and monuments were destroyed in short periods, suggesting intensified social unrest and insurrections against the old rulers and the establishment of a new social and ideological order – ultimately also unable to revert the city’s decline. The social change in the last moments of the empire are also reinforced by the findings that show the deliberated destruction of old religious icons and structures, when some monoliths and stelae were ceremoniously beheaded and mutilated, a symbolic act to show the changing order; we are not really sure if these acts occurred before or after Tiwanaku’s fall, but considering how the later peoples and polities considered the city as sacred, these most likely occurred during Tiwanku’s demise.
Another element to the social chaos in these decades was the emergence of large migratory movements. Linguists, in particular, suggest that during these decades the Altiplano was invaded by the Aymara tribes, who eventually established their own chiefdoms and kingdoms that dominated the area until the Inca conquest. According to this theory, the Aymara came from the north in Ayacucho region in Peru or the south in northern Chile/Argentina; it is debatable if they directly attacked the declining Tiwanaku empire or just occupied the power vacuum after its fall. While archeological evidence supports the idea of large migrations happening during this time, many specialists argue that most of them occurred within the Altiplano, with large populations leaving the southern areas (Tiwanaku’s core) to Titicaca’s northern shores and neighboring regions; many of them also argue that most of the Aymara may have already been living in the area for a long time.
Either way, by the end of the 12th century, the political and cultural landscape in the Altiplano was completely distinct. While Tiwanaku was never entirely abandoned, only a small fraction of its former population still lived within the old boundaries of the city, and the once great capital became a small hamlet and village, laying the foundations of the modern Tiahuanaco a little west from the archeological site; other secondary and larger cities were completely abandoned and forgotten. This transition era was quite chaotic and violent, the Altiplano population declined and became more nomad; cities and towns became much smaller, though their number multiplied, showing the political fragmentation and dispersion during this period.
During the next century, the conditions in the Titicaca basin were more stable and the Altiplano was politically divided under the Aymara hegemony. They established
a series of chiefdoms and kingdoms that occasionally fought against each other; the most powerful and complex among them were the
Qolla (Qulla or Colla) and the
Lupaqa (Lupaka or Lupaca) kingdoms, both located in Titicaca’s northwest shores in modern-day Peru; their respective capitals were Hatun Colla (between modern cities of Juliaca and Puno) and Chucuito (few kilometers south from Puno). The former Tiwanaku heartlands were occupied by the
Paka Jaqis (“eagle men” in Aymara, Hispanized as
Pacajes), a people organized in a loosely defined chiefdom that didn’t had a strong sense of territoriality or hereditary succession but were regarded as brave and free men. Their capital was called Axawiri, a
marka (village in Aymara) that became the modern city of Caquiaviri.
Aymara Kingdoms before the Inca conquest. From Wikipedia.
These Aymara polities seems to have maintained an uneasy relationship, mixing agreements, political marriages and trade with occasional warfare. Qolla and Lupaqa, in particular, maintained a long political rivalry in the following centuries, which was explored by the growing Cuzco Kingdom. Viracocha (not the Staff God, but the Inca ruler in early 15th century) made the first Inca incursions against the Altiplano, when he established an alliance with Lupaqa. The Qolla
mallku (Aymara title for ruler), worried about this coalition, quickly launched a military expedition to conquer the Lupaqa before Viracocha could send reinforcements, thus establishing a short-lived empire that dissuaded new Inca invasions. The enlarged Qolla kingdom, however, proved unstable and was soon dissolved under the old rivalries. Viracocha’s son, Pachacuti, was the next ruler that laid eyes over the Altiplano, however during most of his reign he was engaged in wars in the west against the Chanka. Around 1450, he prepared a full-scale invasion and the Qolla and Lupaqa, threatened by the growing Inca, put their rivalry aside and formed a coalition, however they were unable to defeat Pachacuti and the northern side of the Altiplano became part of the empire.
During the reign of the next Inca ruler, Topa Inca, both the Qolla and Lupaqa staged a rebellion, led by the son of the former Qolla
mallku, when the emperor was engaged in a campaign against Amazon tribes the late 1470s. Topa Inca organized one of the largest armies assembled in Inca history and ruthlessly crushed the rebellion, slaughtering every Qolla rebellious noble in field or in sacrifices, making such strong impression that the Lupaqa and other allies immediately surrendered. Topa Inca, however, continued his campaign in the Altiplano, conquering every single Aymara chiefdom that wasn’t submitted to the Inca during the next decade. He would go further south, expanding the empire into modern Argentina and Chile, while leaving his son, the future emperor Huayana Capac, consolidating the newly organized Collasuyu (the southern part of the empire). While Tiwanaku was still largely in ruins and was a small
marka during that time, Huayana Capac was aware of its symbolic value, ordering the restauration of some structures and even personally staying at the site for some time. After his ascension to emperorship, he still regularly visited at Tiwanaku and in one of these a son (possibly Manco Inca, the founder of the Neo-Inca state) or daughter was born there.
for each culture level in the capital and Pagan Temples provide + 1 Priest Slot.
to cities based on each distinct type of terrain worked or trade routes provide 
.
) but doesn’t require Copper; produces 
to Pasture Improvement. As I said in the history section, the Altiplano’s peoples, including Tiwanaku, had to develop smart strategies for their water management. They built aqueducts, canals (some were even connected with the sewer systems in the largest cities) and qochas. This latter an artificial pound commonly found in southern areas in the Altiplano and also in puna regions, whose main function was supply water for the llamas/alpacas herds. If we find the bonuses too weak (there are only two accessible Llamas near Tiwanaku), maybe we can make the UB available with an earlier tech.
