Anarchy, Heterarchy, and the Bioarchaeological Evidence of Labor in the Tiwanaku “State” (AD 500–1100) of Bolivia and Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Early explorers thought that Tiwanaku was a ritual or pilgrimage center because of its heartland location in the high-altitude, seemingly inhospitable altiplano of Bolivia. Years after “progressing” beyond a ceremonial center, Tiwanaku was fit into the “state” category within a political systems theory typology. The reasoning was that Tiwanaku had organized, raised-field agriculture beyond pastoralist chiefdoms, horticulturalist tribes, or foraging bands (Service 1975). Tiwanaku was also proposed to be expansively similar to the Inca, with a hierarchically centralized, elite core and subservient colonies. However, recent research requires a reassessment and discussion of alternatives to the Tiwanaku state. My prior research has shown that instead of a corvée system, skeletal evidence supports community-based, reciprocal labor in the Tiwanaku heartland, colonies not working for an elite core, and a reduction in workload with the development of the Tiwanaku polity. This paper further explores skeletal labor changes at Tiwanaku as anarchically or heterarchically organized. Using temporal and spatial changes, I evaluate a demonstrated lack of hierarchy or reduced hierarchy, increased egalitarian cooperation, and assess collaborations that resist authoritarian power as anti-community interest within this Andean society.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33183