Ancient Titicaca : The Evolution of Complex Society in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia / Charles Stanish.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stanish, Charles, Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (384 p.)

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2003]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

One of the richest and most complex civilizations in ancient America evolved around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru and northern Bolivia. This book is the first comprehensive synthesis of four thousand years of prehistory for the entire Titicaca region. It is a fascinating story of the transition from hunting and gathering to early agriculture, to the formation of the Tiwanaku and Pucara civilizations, and to the double conquest of the region, first by the powerful neighboring Inca in the fifteenth century and a century later by the Spanish Crown. Based on more than fifteen years of field research in Peru and Bolivia, Charles Stanish's book brings together a wide range of ethnographic, historical, and archaeological data, including material that has not yet been published. This landmark work brings the author's intimate knowledge of the ethnography and archaeology in this region to bear on major theoretical concerns in evolutionary anthropology.Stanish provides a broad comparative framework for evaluating how these complex societies developed. After giving an overview of the region's archaeology and cultural history, he discusses the history of archaeological research in the Titicaca Basin, as well as its geography, ecology, and ethnography. He then synthesizes the data from six archaeological periods in the Titicaca Basin within an evolutionary anthropological framework.Titicaca Basin prehistory has long been viewed through the lens of first Inca intellectuals and the Spanish state. This book demonstrates that the ancestors of the Aymara people of the Titicaca Basin rivaled the Incas in wealth, sophistication, and cultural genius. The provocative data and interpretations of this book will also make us think anew about the rise and fall of other civilizations throughout history.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Figures

List of Maps

List of Tables

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Ancient Collasuyu

2 The Evolution of Political Economies

3 The Geography and Paleoecology of the Titicaca Basin

4 The Ethnography and Ethnohistory of the Titicaca Basin

5 The History of Archaeological Research in the Titicaca Basin

6 The Origins and Elaboration of Rank in the Early and Middle Formative Periods

7 The Rise of Competitive Peer Polities in the Upper Formative Period

8 The First State of Tiwanaku

9 The Rise of Complex Agro-Pastoral Societies in the Altiplano Period

10 Conquest from Outside: The Inca Occupation of the Titicaca Basin

11 The Evolution of Complex Society in the Titicaca Basin

Appendix: Selected Terms from the 1612 Aymara Dictionary of Ludovico Bertonio

Notes

References Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2024)

ISBN:

9780520420625

0520420624

OCLC:

70771031