Titicaca’s stone centre grew into an Andean city of 10,000
Tiwanaku near Lake Titicaca in western Bolivia, about seventy kilometres from La Paz, ranks among South America’s largest archaeological sites, with surface remains around four square kilometres. Pedro Cieza de León recorded it in 1549 while hunting the Inca capital Qullasuyu.
Tiwanaku lies near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca in western Bolivia, roughly seventy kilometres from La Paz, and ranks among the largest archaeological sites in South America. Its first written description dates from 1549. The Jesuit Bernabé Cobo reported a local name, taypiqala, stone in the centre, expressing a belief that it stood at the middle of the world; what its builders called it may be lost. Arthur Posnansky once claimed it was 11,000 to 17,000 years old, but work from the 1970s onward produced far younger dates.
The city began growing steadily in the early centuries AD and gained importance between about 375 and 700. At its height it covered around four square kilometres and housed more than 10,000 people, supported by an economy of farming and herding tied to trade. Its power in the Titicaca basin rose between 200 and 500 and peaked around 500 to 600.
Society there seems to have collapsed around AD 1000, for reasons still argued. Research by Elliott Arnold of the University of Pittsburgh points to increasing aridity at that time, and drought would have strained local agriculture.
Tiwanaku shared a body of imagery, known as the Southern Andean Iconographic Series, with the Wari culture, through ties that may have been commercial or military, and later Inca cities echo its architecture. Excavated monuments include the Akapana platform mound, the Pumapunku stepped platforms, the Kalasasaya and Putuni enclosures and the Semi-Subterranean Temple. Some scholars think the elite lived within walls ringed by a moat, creating a sacred island that commoners entered only for ceremonies.
Source: Tiwanaku
