The Politics of Connectivity at Khonkho Wankane, Bolivia

Summary

Located in the southern Lake Titicaca basin of Bolivia, the Late Formative period (200 BC – AD 500) center of Khonkho Wankane was a dynamic place where groups of mobile agropastoralists and caravan drovers engaged with resident ritual specialists. In a social context characterized by diversity, population fluctuation, and mobility, what form did political practice take? I review evidence from Khonkho Wankane for interaction with areas throughout the south central Andes and I explore some of the ways that earlier traditions, both local and distant, were cited and modified at Khonkho Wankane. I argue that ritual specialists at Khonkho Wankane creatively deployed and reconfigured a diversity of objects, ideas, and traditions to negotiate the politics of periodic ritual encounters and events.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Itinerant Matters and Hybrid Objects: Research on material transfers and contact products

Keywords

Spatial Coverage