MIDDLE HORIZON: WARI, TIWANAKU,
MILITARISM, RELIGION, TRANSPORTATION,
TRADE: A.D. 600-900

Lesson objectives: trace development of expansive states and how various regions are affected.

What environmental and apparent sociopolitical factors lead to the transformations of cultures within the Middle Horizon? We have already discussed the stress apparent in the Moche state around A.D. 500-600. The power shifted from the Moche valley itself to 50 km inland and 200 km north to Pampa Grande, in the Lambayeque valley. Excavated by Izumi Shimada, this site shows an estimated population of 30,000, huge numbers of storerooms and craft shops, new styles, and evidence of a new labor system in the marked but mixed adobe bricks. In the iconography there are new symbols, the old gods are dropped, sea images important, the possible staff god or gateway god, even seen on one mural at Moche's Huaca de la Luna, takes on a much greater importance. More fortified sites appear, and the inland shift suggests more control over the irrigation intake canals closer to the headwaters of the rivers, as a response to less rainfall. There is lots of evidence for flooding. Coring into the Quelccaya glacier ice south of Cuzco showed good evidence for the kinds of dramatic climatic change that was not supposed to happen in the tropics. The ice strata show more dust for dry times, thicker ice for wet years, and oxygen isotope variation according to temperature (Krajick 2002). Huge floods from big El Ni Z o events are seen in the years 511, 512, 546, 576, 600, 610, 612, 650. Flooding destroys agricultural fields and irrigation systems, not to mention communication systems and even whole cities. The glacier ice held evidence for long droughts from 524-40, 562-94, 636-45. Compare this with the 1998 smaller El Ni Z o that brought the eastern U.S. huge amounts of rain and the succeeding 2-3 years of drought that we are just now coming out of (in a big way!). The 1982 El Ni Z o cut off northern Peru for months, and supplies had to be sent by sea and air from Lima.

So Moche "collapsed" or transformed after 500 spectacular years, but as Moseley says, fishers don't starve, and if the rainfall and warm current cut off the anchoveta, they eat other fish. But farmers need to be fed, and you have to rebuild after disasters too. There is even evidence of a new strain of maize coming in that may have been more productive, with larger cobs and more kernels. We see similar transformations with Nazca: Cahuachi and many small hamlets become deserted. The population is drawn to a few large centers, and there is more ritual focusing upon water. So these changes call forth the name Middle Horizon and the view of punctuated equilibrium in cultural evolution, relatively rapid change after long periods of (so-called) stability or continuity.

What is happening at this time in the Lake Titicaca basin? We have already seen much earlier how the good climate and rise in water level in the lake are associated with the rise of complex society based on bountiful aquatic resources and herding. Important sites at this time are Pukara, 60 km north of the lake, and Tiwanaku, 15 km south. These cities are established as far back as the late Early Horizon. The llama caravan trade with Cuzco some 150 km north and with Chile some 500 km to the south was well established. In the Middle Horizon we see the archaeological record including polychrome ceramics and cut and polished stonework, stepped pyramids, rectangular sunken courtyards, elements of the Yaya Mama tradition we mentioned during earlier times. Tiwanaku, in the Bolivian highlands (find on map), continues to grow in population and by A.D. 600 is the capital of what most would call an empire stretching from the south coast to northern Chile. It is the longest-lasting of any Andean empire.

What is Wari? Simultaneously, after the major changes in Moche, a related but new phenomenon spreads from the Ayacucho basin of southern Peru to the highlands, though the Wari state (or empire) was briefer than Tiwanaku. As your text notes, the center of power shifted from the north coast to the south central Andes (see on maps). So are these cultural manifestations, lasting from about A.D. 600-1000, the first empires? Probably. Moseley says yes, Bruhns says maybe (and see their maps of these 2 . How do we distinguish empire from "mere" state? Empire can be distinguished by several criteria, especially the control of extensive territory and the incorporation of conquered foreign states. Archaeologists sometimes call them "precocious" empires, early, expansive, agropastoral states. Let's examine the sequence of events and processes.

What is the history of the Tiwanaku capital? By A.D. 200 it had eclipsed Pukara to become the most powerful city-state. Look at the phase divisions: Tiwanaku I-II = 400 B.C. -A.D. 100, establishment and growth of the settlement; III = A.D. 1-400, construction of massive public buildings and raised agricultural fields, becoming a major city; IV = A.D. 400-800, spread of empire through Tiwanaku V, A.D. 1000. The site has been investigated by American, Bolivian and other archaeologists, who have also examined its surrounding countryside to determine economic and political systems (Kolata1987,1993, 1996; Bermann 1994, Lumbreras 1999, Stanish 2003). The type site for the Tiwanaku culture, it is located on the river of the same name, which flows north 15 km to Lake Titicaca. The location is on the altiplano, at 3800 m elevation, which makes it a bleak, cold environment. Though it began as a small farming village, few domestic dwellings have been excavated, and of course the ceremonial center has been looted. The main site covers about 6 square km, most of it of adobe, and most of it gone, looted and eroded. It is surrounded by a moat that is thought to have been ceremonial, not defensive, because it drained all the buildings and courts. Rainfall into the sunken courtyard would have drained out through a complex system into the moat, making a rushing water noise (compare with the roar of water through Chavin de Huantar). See the picture in Bruhns (p. 241) showing a (whistle) model of Tiwanaku architecture with a characteristic T-shaped door.

The main terraced pyramid is named Akapana, some 200 m square, 17 m high, so big it was once thought to be a natural hill. It may be demonstrating an important symbolic association with mountains. It is made of cut and joined stone blocks at the base and retaining walls filled with dirt. There are 2 basal walls of sandstone blocks several meters wide (called cyclopean blocks). This is a typical architectural technique. There are 6 T-shaped terraces with vertical stone pillars. A smashed cache of keros (libation beakers) was found at the base of one wall, and near the base were dozens of probably sacrificed, dismembered male bodies. On the summit is a sunken court 50 m square, surrounded by elite residences with burials of sitting priests facing one male with a pot on which is depicted a sacred puma, and ritual offerings of llamas, ceramics, copper, silver, obsidian. There are 4 temples, one with sculpted stone heads of men or skulls. The Bennett monolith, the largest Andean stela, is named after a famous American archaeologist Wendell Bennett, who did the first stratigraphic excavations here in the 1930s and unearthed this giant stone sculpture. It has a human with elaborate clothes, a crown, holding a ceremonial drinking cup (kero) in one hand and a scepter or baton in the other. Other rock monuments from the site are carved with different figures sometimes in different styles, and Moseley says they may have been from captured peoples, noting the Thunderbolt stela, of which half was found here and half on the north end of the lake. Confiscating sacred, ancestral symbols was one way of subjecting different peoples.

What is the Gateway God? An important supernatural figure seen often in all this stone carving, it has large round or squarish eyes. A version of it is the central figure on the famous Gateway of the Sun, a single block of rock carved in low relief. Here the Gateway God has an elaborate headdress dangling with trophy heads and projecting a burst of rays at the end of which are circles and pumas. The figure faces forward and holds staffs crowned with condors ø warrior emblems. Kolata says the staffs are atlatl and sling weapons for hurling stones. The god wears a tunic, kilt, and necklace. Moseley points out how clearly this figure reflects the Chavin Staff God of more than 1000 years earlier, and we can see antecedents and derivatives of this figure throughout the empire, including the gateway theme, on pottery and other media, with special emphasis upon the duality of the representations. The rest of the gateway portrays 30 winged human-bird figures running in profile, each with a pair of condor staffs, converging upon the central figure. The god and entire scene may be a calendrical representation important for forecasting planting and herding. We saw this front-facing deity earlier at Pukara, holding an agricultural digging stick and lead rope for a llama, sometimes with a pack, so symbolizing subsistence and trade. Perhaps these depictions are depictions of what made society great, just like the WPA murals of the 30s in the U.S., celebrating the worker. Perhaps we are just seeing new manifestations of the same longstanding religious elements. The gateway itself is now located out of context on the edge of another large platform called (Q)Kalasasaya, which is 100 m square. This gateway is thought perhaps to have been originally located on a pyramid outside the moat. Another pyramid outside the moat is Puma Punku, 150 m square and 5 m high, with 3 terraces, drainage systems, and also a sunken summit courtyard. It was erected later, after A.D. 600, maybe replacing Akapana as the main temple, though elites and offerings at all the temples continued as the empire was expanding. We think the walls of all the temples must have had gold, textiles, paint ø far more colorful or even garish than we imagine today when we see large gray hills.

What can we infer about ritual and symbolism in Tiwanaku? There is good evidence for mountain worship being widespread in the Andes, associated with crop and animal fertility. Locations for important sites may have been selected because of their positions relative to sacred mountains; there was probably oracle worship associated with this, involving the great stone carvings. How can we interpret this theoretically? A postprocessual archaeologist might say that ideological systems determine the course of sociopolitical systems; a cultural materialist might suggest that the mountains are the source of the streams, the water that makes fertility possible in this often bleak environment. The duality, even 4-part organization and cardinal orientation is clear at Tiwanaku, possibly set forth by political elite forces as part of elaborate ceremony ø the state as theater (which it usually is!).

Discuss subsistence systems in Tiwanaku. All this was supported by intensive agriculture made possible by "reclaiming" wetlands through raised field construction. They excavated canals 5-10 m apart, 200 m long, and piled the soil up to plant quinoa, oca, potato. They also hauled in boulders and rocks as a base, and grew fish in the canals not only to eat but to fertilize the crops (ancient aquaculture). Between harvests the llama could graze and deposit more fertilizer (this area was probably one of the main original domestication centers for camelids). Some of the canals have produced Chiripa pottery in deep excavation levels, suggesting these ridged or raised fields began much earlier. To examine the benefits of such intensive agricultural labor, Alan Kolata, Clark Erickson, and Bolivian scientists did experimental archaeology (Straughan 1991). Western agronomists today consider the altiplano bleak and unsuitable for agriculture, especially because of frequent frosts and exhausted soils. But when canals were redug and local farmers finally persuaded to plant crops in the old way, the yield was phenomenal ø potatoes the size of grapefruits, lots of barley, oats, lettuce, onions (some of these clearly introduced plants!). Algae and nitrogen-fixing plants that thrived in the canal bottoms were scooped up after the harvest and piled on top, adding nutrients. In addition, the presence of water made the local environment of the canals warmer, protecting the crops from frosts. With the raised fields the farmers got up to 20 times the crop yields they would have gotten with modern methods, and 2 annual crops in an area that had gotten only one in recent times. This is a famous example of not only applied anthropology, but of the practical value of archaeological knowledge. Palynologist Barbara Leyden at USF, who worked on sediment cores in the waters of the raised fields, says that with the drought the farmers could have followed the retreating shoreline of Lake Titicaca and continued with new raised fields, but perhaps the lack of labor prevented it. During the 20 th century there has been a very stable climate but it may not last, and we can gain useful knowledge of how human societies responded to such changes in the past.

It is unclear how the raised field construction worked or why it was abandoned. But it was a major labor investment needing central control and engineering (supposedly). It is estimated that populations of up 500,000 could have been supported by this intensive agriculture, in an area where today there are only 2000 farmers, the Pampa Koani, the largest of the valleys surrounding Tiwanaku. Others of the population were herders, fishers on the lake, traders. So it all made possible a huge agricultural surplus. Outside of the Tiwanaku capital there were lots of satellite centers with terraced pyramids, sunken courts, etc. One well-excavated one was Lukurmata, on the lake edge, a moated city by Tiwanaku IV times. The centers apparently coordinated labor for the great earth-moving projects, not only pyramids and raised fields, but also causeways, raised roadbeds to cross raised fields and go to the lake. They straightened river valleys with levees, cut stone, controlled floods and aqueducts. Little is known of the Tiwanaku royalty or common folk. One palace in the capital city had orange and black adobe walls on top a cut stone block foundation and shaft tombs, one of which was recorded undisturbed. It contained an elite woman buried wrapped in now disintegrated textiles, with copper bracelets, a lapis collar, turquoise, a gold mask, gold pins, a copper mirror, and a lead (!) flask. In the Kalasasaya pyramid were portraits of what were probably individual rulers, but no undisturbed tombs have been found, so no Sipan yet. Meanwhile there is new evidence that large-scale silver mining in the Bolivian Andes was begun this early; lake cores near a well-known Inca silver mine have been found to contain small amounts of metals that would have been vaporized during smelting, in suddenly high levels around A.D. 1000, near the end of the Tiwanaku dominance, for a 100-200-year time, after which they dropped until about 1400 when the Inca took over (Los Angeles Times 2003b).

Describe the expansion of empire from Tiwanaku. On the desert coast are found spectacular well-preserved weavings with the image of the Gateway of the Sun and other typical iconography; spiritual as well as economic and political connections. The empire used local elites to get good needed, and rewarded them. Moseley mentions San Pedro de Atacama in the salt puna 800 km from Tiwanaku, a 1.5 month caravan time, and other places, where a few elite burials have fine Tiwanaku textiles, beakers, gold, snuff tubes and trays in the imperial style. There was long-distance transport of small, high-status items to buy loyalty, apparently. Bruhns (p. 261) describes a shaman burial with curing paraphernalia ø perhaps evidence of traveling curers who took the Tiwanaku gods around? Or was there actual colonization, not just stuff spreading by caravans of traders? The spread of empire from A.D. 400-500 involved conquest of neighbors on the west and north side of the lake, and by A.D. 600 they were as far as Cochabamba in Bolivia and the Moquegua valley in southern Peru (find these on map), as well as extending to northern Chile. A reason for the spread to lower areas may have been to produce more maize for ceremonial beer, which was not only ritually important but used to pay laborers. But

What is the record in the Moquegua valley? Some 300 km from Tiwanaku, the Omo complex is the largest of some sites which appear to represent peaceful colonization. It had 94 acres of cane houses, cemeteries, a temple pyramid and sunken court with a llama fetus and starfish offering buried in it, and a staff god tapestry. It was a satellite city, the largest outside Tiwanaku, giving access to the coastal resources. There were also stele fragments in the Tiwanaku style, and remains of peanuts, maize, cotton, coca ø all crops not available in the windswept Titicaca basin. There were imported Tiwanaku goods and local imitations. One structure was a chicha (corn beer) brewery with imported portrait keros. Tombs of elites with high status textiles and other goods show participation in the network of empire. We will return to this valley shortly to see how this colony was set up in the middle of foreign territory. But the spread of Tiwanaku may have begun with climatic crises and motivation to seek food for people farther and farther away. After several centuries at Omo, the canals and buildings were deliberately destroyed and cemeteries opened. Was this internal revolt or war? Sometime later parts of the villages were reoccupied.

What happened to Tiwanaku? By A.D. 1000-1100 we see mostly abandonment of the capital and the empire, often called collapse, but better termed transformation into something else. They still did some raised-field agriculture after that time, but were certainly not doing it when Spanish chronicler Cieza de León visited in 1549 and noted how big the place was (he was one of the few to mention the brilliant civilizations that had preceded the Inca). The Gateway of the Sun was moved and repairs made, poorly and cheaply, near the end of the Middle Horizon, so it looks like there was still reverence for ceremony but loss of knowledge or resources to do it. Was there a revolt? An earthquake? Gradual abandonment? Only more archaeology can (perhaps) tell. Meanwhile, the Inca did restore the place a bit as a mythical human original place. There was some evidence of drought ending the peak agricultural production. After A.D. 1000 there appears to have been strife and competition, construction of fortified sites in the south Andes, the end of centralized control in the south Andes. Over the next centuries the area became under the control of smaller local kingdoms.

Describe the Wari (Huari) empire. It seems to develop as a small agricultural state with heavy influence from Tiwanaku but rising on its own to consolidate its own valley and expand rapidly by movement outward, military invasion or not. Moseley describes it as extensive, capturing distant and scattered resources with minor investment in less important intervening areas. There is debate as to whether it was a widespread religion practiced at confederated regional centers or an Inca-like militaristic empire or something in between. The Wari heartland was near the city of Ayacucho, which has been the center of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) terrorist movement in the recent past (bad for fieldwork, good for taking time to write up fieldwork, I would imagine). IN 1896 Max Uhle excavated at Pachacamac just south of Lima and found pots and textiles with imagery of the Staff God similar to the Gateway God of Tiwanaku. He then labeled it coastal Tiahuanaco but the art style was not exactly the same. Cieza de León had traveled in 1548 to the Huari site and mentioned it, and in 1931 Tello rediscovered this huge city. In 1950 Bennett excavated it and saw its importance and by the 60s and 70s investigators were using ceramics and other archaeological evidence to document the development of a separate empire, its northward expansion, and its collapse in 200 years between A.D. 600-800.

Discuss the archaeology of the Wari site or capital city. Well studied by Lumbreras (e.g., 1999), Isbell (1997; Isbell and McEwan 1991) and others, Wari covers an area 3-4 km square and had an estimated 30,000 to 70,000 people after it grew from a small farming village to a city in the Huarpa river basin (find on map). It is located 25 km north of Ayacucho (find on map). The area had longstanding ties to the coast and the Ica valley. It lies at an elevation of 2800 m and the urban area was terraced to make habitable surfaces. The city was very partitioned into irregular compounds, perhaps dividing people by class or rank? The architecture was characterized by unique patio structures bordered by 3 or 4 long multistoried buildings grouped into large walled enclosures (see diagram of a compound in Bruhns p. 253). Some were of cut and polished (dressed) stone but most walls were of irregular stone, most coated with white plaster, as were floors. Some compounds were for domestic activity, others were clean, others were for craft specialists. Some important compounds were D-shaped, and there is a clear impression of private ceremony and ritual in Wari, as opposed to the public ceremonial areas in Tiwanaku. There were looted tombs and an elaborate subterranean water drainage system to both bring water in and take it out. Artifacts encountered here included imports from great distances, such as Spondylus shells from Ecuador, minerals and other shells from the coast. The city apparently became full of people drawn there as farms and herding towns were abandoned.

How did Wari flourish while Moche crashed? Isbell says there was expanded highland agriculture, long canals to the city representing large labor investments, that were advantageous because in time of drought there are still mountain springs, and the water cam be claimed before it reaches the lower slopes. This newer technology was then packaged with new imagery and marketed it. Some pottery-making centers have huge offerings consisting of smashed huge urns (not small beakers as at Tiwanaku) with polychrome paintings of the Tiwanaku Gateway God or Staff God, and occasionally sacrificed young women as well. There is clear influence from Tiwanaku 700 miles away, but no Tiwanaku architecture, no gateways, no stone statues or terraced pyramidal platforms with sunken courts. Plus the staff deity is transformed into a different character ø instead of holding weapons, it holds maize, and there is maize on the rays of the headdress. This might be religious fundamentalism, or resurrecting an old god. Was it like the American flags many now display on their homes and cars, which are actually responses to events elsewhere in the world? Some say it might be due to Tiwanaku expansion out of its own heartland after the A.D. 600 drought, others think it is just an introduction of a new religion from Huari pilgrims going to and returning from Tiwanaku. Perhaps it is missionaries, or ambassadors bringing influences. Some 20 years ago many did not see Wari as an independent state, but now we do because it is different enough, though some may still think it is different strains of the same religion (like Western and Eastern Christianity).

How can we describe Wari expansion? There was expansion from the sierra to the coast, into neighboring valleys, imposing new administration and moving populations down to lower parts of valleys where they could grow maize and construct massive terraces, shifting from highland tuber crops to produce more maize for food, beer, pay, and ritual. There was more emphasis upon terracing steep hillsides so they could be irrigated from higher altitudes. Fancy roads were built, and other imperial centers with rigid patio-style design. In the Cuzco valley was the largest and southernmost highland Wari center, Pikillacta, with the impressive rectilinear Wari architecture over built rolling terrain. It was not a storage center but a ceremonial and residential place for provincial governors. It covered 2 km 2 , including llama corrals, and was as big as the later Inca capital at Cuzco. Archaeologist Gordon McEwan thinks that it may have been a mummy storage depot, and that the Wari controlled subjugated peoples by confiscating their sacred ancestral mummies as hostages, since property rights were tied to ancestors (Morell 2002). This and other Wari centers were strategically located to control trade and communication routes and prevent Tiwanaku intrusion from the south. But they were not fortified, nor is there much evidence for a military presence. The surrounding highlands were terraced and irrigated, suggesting more large scale labor cooperation instead of warfare. Excellent road systems were maintained, and the quipu (khipu), strings of knotted cords for record keeping, was apparently already in use by Wari times (if not earlier). The Middle Horizon road systems were different than those of the Inca, went to different places, but were efficient by this time. Bronze was introduced at this time also, for tools and weapons.

In the far north, the second largest provincial center was Viracochapampa, where Wari took over an evidently already existing city-state (Marca Huamachuco), which stayed in power after the fall of Wari and continued to control trade with Ecuador. Viracochapampa was on the coast, covered a half km square, and had the same kinds of courts, patios, and lack of fortifications or evidence of conflict.

Is there any evidence for Wari military force? In the Moquegua valley where Tiwanaku already had the Omo colony, 20 km upstream the Wari built Cerro Baul, a center atop a 600 m-high mesa. This is the only area in which we have both Wari and Tiwanaku occupations. Cerro Baul had been interpreted as an invasive military center (e.g., in the earlier edition of your textbook [Moseley 1992]), but now it is realized that there are no clear fortifications or evidence of conflict, though it is on the high, strategic, defendable mesa. There are lots of Ayacucho ceramics and central complexes for storage, brewing and drinking chica, and ritual. The place could be interpreted as both a bold religious statement and an economic intrusion, as they built a 10-km-long canal to irrigate the expansive terraces in this rugged high terrain. The Tiwanaku folk downriver were flatland farmers in the valley bottomland. So far it looks like they all had peaceful coexistence, but when the Wari abandoned Cerro Baul it may have been associated with the destruction of the Tiwanaku settlements. Expansion of Wari to the coast, whether militaristic, like the later Inca pattern, or religious influence taken up by the locals, was different. Though styles and designs of Wari were common, the highland terracing system could not help on the coast because there was no water or high ground, so exporting that would be like selling bikinis in the Arctic. At Pachacamac there are Middle Horizon tombs with Wari influence that could suggest the presence of an oracle such as we know was there later. Though there is certainly evidence for human sacrifice in both Wari and Tiwanaku, it now seems that there were coexisting empires right next to each other with no military conflict ø nonbelligerent rivals ø certainly a cultural situation worth studying well!

What aspects of public archaeology can be mentioned in conjunction with these two famous cultures of the Middle Horizon? First is the quichua or terrace reclamation system. Wari policies lasted long after the empire disappeared. The system of building terraces and irrigating them lasted through Inca times and led to great population growth and domination of the highlands over the coast because the agricultural system came to be able to feed more people. Highland terracing and careful apportioning of mountain spring water allowed stretching of the growing season enough to allow maize production. Higher terraces were for tubers. Such systems still function today, run by local communities with concerns for fairness and communal, drunken canal-cleaning festivals (Trawick 2002). These systems, probably originated in Middle Horizon times and were continued by the Inca. They are great models of water management, studied by applied anthropologists and needed by the Peruvian government today.

A second comment on archaeology and society: in much of South America of course, there is strong identification with the glories of the prehistoric indigenous past (unlike in the U.S., but similar to much of Mexico and Central America). Mayors of villages surrounding Tiwanaku recently seized the site from the Bolivian government to collect tourist fees they had been promised. Aymara Indians were pressing for greater local autonomy. This indiginismo-type movement is in conflict with the military and the federal government, which heralds the site as a national symbol. The illustration in National Geographic (Morell 2002) shows the Indians at the site in distinctive woven ponchos characteristic of the individual villages, and the comparison is made with the different types of prehistoric cranial deformation (head-binding of infants) to give different shapes and be able to wear different types of hats conforming them according to one's local origins. But during these events archaeologists (Vranich 2003) feared being prevented from continuing excavations; since they had respected the 23 kin-based local communities and their unionized workers who also toiled at the digging, there was no crisis. Another part of the article in Archaeology magazine tells of worry about a bad harvest, and the archaeologists helping to honor the earth goddess Pachamama at the ruins by participating in a sacrifice ceremony that included disemboweling a live llama and burning up a fine textile. Given the political unrest (that continues in Boliviaø South America's poorest country and now the world's largest producer of cocaine) and shifting power systems, the archaeologist (Vranich 2003:64) notes that we often talk about how our research will allow indigenous peoples to take control of their past and future identity, but are often unprepared when they do! Kolata (1993:302) notes how the symbolic contest over the ruins of a world long gone is a fitting testament to the achievements of these Middle Horizon Aymara native peoples.

How did the Middle Horizon end? It is unclear if there was conquest of Wari by force or peaceful change. Moseley emphasizes tectonic movement of the earth in the alteration of canals that kept needing to be rebuilt before people gave up. Perhaps they were just overextended. But by A.D. 800 or so, the populations moved to fortified villages or towns and it was the end of cities in southern Peru until the Spanish came. This was not the case on the north coast, where regional cultures were prospering but there was no empire yet. Shortly after this, in A.D. 1000-1100, apparently a drought ended the Tiwanaku empire and the staff deity and his entourage disappeared after hanging around for at least 2 millennia.

What about the rest of the continent in Middle Horizon times? The Bruhns text does a good job of summarizing important developments. There were raised fields all over the Llanos de Mojos, southeastern Bolivia, and the Orinoco basin and in Colombia (north and east of Tiwanaku and Wari). There are farmers and hunter-gatherer groups in these areas on and off through time. One of the challenges is to find out how complex they all might have been. Urn burials all over lowland South America suggest some complexity. The Mound Velarde site in southeastern Bolivia produced urn burials with a combination of Andean vessel shapes and Amazonian-looking adornos, handles, and labrets on the faces. There are traces of stilt houses in all these lowlands, graters for manioc, and artifacts such as clay stools and clay fire dogs. There were no rocks for hearths or anything else, which of course leads us to remember that there might have been very spectacular material culture and great sociopolitical power, but if things were made of perishable materials such as wood, we will not find them.

In southeastern Brazil there are sambaquis, shell mounds, up to 25 m high, some occupied for over 2000 years, along the coasts, estuaries, and bays. They produce bone points for hunting and fishing, and burials under houses, and it is unclear if they are seasonally occupied or permanent settlements. Inland on the rivers there are agricultural settlements producing both maize and tuber crops such as manioc, and evidence of mounds, dikes, fish weirs and other construction. Since Paleo-Indian times we have been seeing manipulation of the tropical forest, planting of fruit and nut trees, and so forth. We can see development of the Tupi-Guarani tradition (named after indigenous ethnic and language groups). Their ceramics are painted red and black on white corrugated surfaces.

Floodplain and tropical forest horticultural systems spread to absorb many hunter-gatherer groups, it seems. New research in Amazonia (Heckenberger et al. 2003, Stokstad 2003) in the Xingu basin (find on map) is using on-the-ground fieldwork and GPS mapping to demonstrate that dense populations of farmers constructed a highly planned network of villages, with canals, artificial ponds, very straight roads up to 50 m wide with meter-high curbs, and even large defensive moats, bridges, and plazas. The research team found 19 villages originating perhaps in late first millennium A.D. linked to smaller settlements with extensive road networks. Though most of this development is slightly later than the Middle Horizon, it probably began this early, and signifies that early complexity we have already mentioned once thought to be impossible in the jungle. There was also construction of mounds and causeways in Venezuela (look at the road map of southern Venezuela ø few modern auto roads, lots of prehistoric raised roads). Were these just to be above flooding? Ceremonial paths? I suspect with the new remote sensing and mapping tools archaeologists are getting there will be much more going on in the tropical lowlands soon.

In the southern part of the continent (sometimes called the southern cone; Aldenderfer 1993, Rivera 1999), from the south central Andes there were many cultures often referred to as marginal since they were thought to be outside the realm of empire, but there was actually much reflection of Andean influence that came to dominate earlier tropical forest influence. Many environments were extremely harsh. The great Chaco area of Argentina, western Bolivia, Paraguay, vast alluvial plains with dramatic wet and dry seasons, supported agricultural settlements of Guarani peoples. The Pampas (a Quechua word meaning flat place), grasslands today famous for gauchos tending cattle, and the southernmost continental area of Patagonia saw continuations of hunting, gathering, and fishing adaptations tied in with the most useful local resources, from pine nuts to terrestrial hunting to diving for shellfish in the extremely cold waters of Tierra del Fuego.

Were there empires in eastern South America? Probably not, but small and large villages and chiefdoms, possibly competing. In coastal Ecuador the Guangala culture and succeeding Mante Z o phases (based on pottery) were involved in intensive agriculture and also long-distance trade in the Spondylus shell that was so sacred farther south in Peru (though this trade was going on since the Late Preceramic). In the very northern Andes of Ecuador and Colombia there was Wari influence, seen in the late Middle Horizon culture called Nari Z o, around A.D. 800. The ceramics were negative resist painted, and portrayed figures of seated men and women with coca in their cheeks. Other distinctive vessel forms included ceramic strombus shells found in many shaft and chamber tombs, and fancy metal work such as gold ornaments that show cats and rayed gold heads. Farther north in the Cauca valley of Colombia the Calima and Quimbaya cultures (or Yotoco and Middle Cauca) continue traditions of goldwork and ceramics in many forms including hollow figurines of nude men and women and lovely pottery decorated with red and white spirals and other designs and strange stirrup-spout shapes with the spout as a broad head. They had elaborate metalwork especially for coca-related artifacts, and figurines similar to the earlier San Agustín stone statues. Many of these cultures appear to have been warring small chiefdoms, but the craftwork they produced was exquisite, even if it was not the product of an imperial art system.

Can we summarize continent-wide interaction for the Middle Horizon? Chapter 15 of the text is entitled trade and transport, and there is a great deal because of so many different environments that produce so many different resources to exchange. It is hard to tell if there was long-distance movement of traders or down-the-line exchange, domino fashion. But a wider range of connections was needed for both food, in times of shortage, and exotics, for elites. Rivers are the fastest way to go anywhere, so it is no surprise that ceramic styles move along from the Andes to the Amazon. Canoes can hold a lot. Probably the most important thing exchanged was information, whether religious, political, or economic. In the western continent there is not much water, so water transport is harder, and even on the coast, there is no wood, so boats are of reeds, as well as seal skin and gourd floats. Inland, the caravan of draft animals is more important. Plus you can eat them. Dried llama meat is called charqui ø from whence we get the word jerky. So you can stay at home and get the exotic stuff from the caravans. The llamas are also important as sacrifices.

It is still unknown whether there were professional traders or markets. It seems there were not ø unlike the Old World and Mesoamerica. Caravans may have moved up and down through connected kin groups and different environments. Or the state could have controlled them and therefore centralized control would mean yes, there was a market system. It does seem that the Wari state controlled obsidian distribution. Wandering traders can take state art and craft (not to mention religion) far beyond territorial boundaries. There are historic accounts of both trader clans controlled by local lords or the state, and of real markets in Peru and Ecuador ø how to interpret these? We do know that the longest distance exchange appears to be not in foodstuffs but in high-status small goods and of course probably also in information and possibly people. Remember the earliest road systems are seen in the Early Horizon; now they are getting better and more extensive.