Fortification on the Margins of the Bolivian Eastern Highlands

Summary

Frontiers are usually spaces of interaction between multiple groups of people navigating through established cultural and political lifeways. The zone of Tumupasa functions as a peripheral site on the margin between the Yungas and the Amazon. This region will form the center of my study area to identify historical and archaeological lines of interaction between highland and lowland groups. I argue that the region of Tumupasa, Bolivia is situated on a natural geographic transit point between the Yungas and the Amazon Amazonian flood plains. This research will attempt to contextualize the region of Ixiamas-Apolo within a frontier centered framework by understanding the spatial and cultural characteristics of regional archaeological sites. The goal of this research is to explore the entangled networks of interaction between highland and lowland groups through taking a preliminary look at local site characteristics and their spatial relationship with the fortification of Ixiamas, Bolivia. I hypothesize the region between Ixiamas and Apolo was a Pre-Hispanic network of Amazon-Andean movement that was utilized prehistorically through the present (Saignes 1985, Tylanueva 2015). Specifically, I argue that the area of Tumupasa was a strategic crossroad of economic and cultural exchange between lowland and highland groups.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22226