Powerful Things: Stone Sculpture and Landscape Animacy in the Lake Titicaca Basin

Summary

Archaeologists working in the Lake Titicaca Basin have become accustomed to treating Formative material traits - whether a style of decorated pottery, ritual architecture, or stone sculpture – as the “Yayamama Religious Tradition”. This term, originally defined by Sergio Chavez and Karen Mohr Chavez, has become a shorthand to refer to what is presumed to be a common approach to ceremonialism across the Titicaca Basin (see also Chavez 2004). More recently, scholars have associated it with the emergence of a new kind of leadership associated with the Late Formative around 200 BC. Recent work indicates substantial heterogeneity in sculptural practices and social landscapes during the Late Formative. In this paper we emphasize the material imagery of sculptures recently discovered in a variety of contexts, including the southern (Khonkho Wankane and the Taraco Peninsula) and eastern (Huata and Escoma) Lake Titicaca basin. We argue that the power of Late Formative lithic materiality stemmed not from centralized authorities but from local political centers and their attention to animate landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Powerful Places in the Ancient Andes

Keywords

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