Adolph Bandelier’s Legacy in the Lake Titicaca Basin: Tiwanaku and Qeya Ceramic Style

Summary

While Swiss-born anthropologist Adolph Bandelier is perhaps best known for his research in the U.S. southwest, for which the Bandelier National Forest bears his name, his research in the Bolivian Lake Titicaca region during the late nineteenth century has left an indelible legacy. Based on a brief visit of scarcely three weeks to the site of Tiahuanaco in 1894, he produced an informative document that remains vital to understanding its monuments to this day. In this paper we focus on his excavations on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, where at the site of Qeya Qolla Chico he recovered ‘over 100’ ceramic vessels pertaining to an enigmatic, transitional material assemblage Dwight Wallace later christened ‘Qeya.’ We synthesize the significance of this research and our comprehensive analysis of this collection, housed at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in relation to other Qeya finds and collections to assess the impact of Bandelier’s research on knowledge of Titicaca’s pre-Columbian past.

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): 21966