page_title: Tiwanaku Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Tiwanaku Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: Puma Punku
context_page_description: The Tiwanaku State was a Pre-Columbian polity in western Bolivia based in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Tiwanaku was one of the most significant Andean civilizations. Its influence extended into present-day Peru and Chile and lasted from around 550 to 1000 AD. Its capital was the monumental city of Tiwanaku, located at the center of the state's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. This area has clear evidence for large-scale agricultural production on raised fields that probably supported the urban population of the capital. Researchers debate whether these fields were administered by a bureaucratic state or through collaboration of a segmented state or federation with local autonomy. One obsolete theory suggests that Tiwanaku was an expansive military empire, based on comparisons to the later Inca Empire, but supporting evidence is weak.
  Tiwanaku was a multi-cultural "hospitality state" that brought people together to build large monuments, perhaps as part of large religious festivals.
context_section_description: The Tiwanaku State (Spanish: Tiahuanaco or Tiahuanacu) was a Pre-Columbian polity in western Bolivia based in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Tiwanaku was one of the most significant Andean civilizations. Its influence extended into present-day Peru and Chile and lasted from around 550 to 1000 AD. Its capital was the monumental city of Tiwanaku, located at the center of the state's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. This area has clear evidence for large-scale agricultural production on raised fields that probably supported the urban population of the capital. Researchers debate whether these fields were administered by a bureaucratic state (top-down) or through collaboration of a segmented state or federation with local autonomy (bottom-up; see review of debate in Janusek 2004:57-73). One obsolete theory suggests that Tiwanaku was an expansive military empire, based on comparisons to the later Inca Empire, but supporting evidence is weak.
  Tiwanaku was a multi-cultural "hospitality state" that brought people together to build large monuments, perhaps as part of large religious festivals. This may have been the central dynamic that attracted people from hundreds of kilometers away, who may have traveled there as part of llama caravans to trade, make offerings, and honor the gods. Tiwanaku grew into the Andes' most important pilgrimage destination and one of the continent's largest Pre-Columbian cities, reaching a population of 10,000 to 20,000 around AD 800.
  Outside of the state's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin, there were Tiwanaku colonies on the coast of Peru, where highland people imitated Tiwanaku temples and ceramics, and cemeteries in northern Chile with elaborate grave goods in the Tiwanaku style. Despite the clear connections to these enclaves, there is little evidence that the state controlled the territory or people in between, that is, its territory was not contiguous. With a few important exceptions, the state's influence outside the Lake Titicaca Basin was "soft power" that blossomed into a powerful, widespread, and enduring cultural hegemony.
caption: Ruins of Pumapunku complex
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