A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Andes has long been cited as one of the few global regions in which a pristine state emerged. Alongside Moche, archaeologists commonly position the Middle Horizon polities of Wari and Tiwanaku as the candidates poised to claim this distinction. Influential arguments frame these latter cities as geopolitical rivals at the center of expansive empires. However, expected networks of imperial administrative centers have not materialized. New empirical evidence suggests that Wari or Tiwanaku did not control expansive regions. These developments coincide with growing tendency to question the validity of the “state” concept more generally. Many archaeologists have responded to such critiques with novel theories. However, the idea of the neoevolutionary state has long shaped archaeological narratives. Andeanists have largely interpreted data in accordance with these models. Without underestimating the influence of Wari or Tiwanaku, we ask participants in this session to reexamine patterns in the archaeological data. We urge participants to propose new models of Middle Horizon polities and interregional interactions that attend to the construction and eventual abandonment of historically specific political institutions, discourses of authority, and notions of community. We encourage a focus on the motivations and desires that could have shaped these processes.