Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities in the Central Andean Middle Horizon

Abstract

When Julian Steward organized the Handbook of South American Indians, he placed Andean cultures in Volume 2, titled “The Andean Civilizations,” (Steward 1946). Andean societies, and particularly those of the Central Andes, were the only ones recognized as “civilized,” by Steward and his colleagues. Answering the question “When did Central Andean cultures evolve into civilizations?” the best consensus has been the Middle Horizon, from about AD cal 650 to 1050. Specifically, the Middle Horizon Wari and Tiwanaku social formations were civilizations—with cities (Isbell and Vranich 2004; Isbell et al. 1991; Kolata 1993; Ponce 1981; but see Makowski, chapter 32 of this volume), state government (Isbell and Schreiber 1978; Kolata 1993; Janusek 2004) and maybe even imperial systems of expansion (Isbell and Cook 2002; Stanish 2003; Schreiber 2005). In terms of archaeological evidence, both Wari and Tiwanaku had complex settlement hierarchies. But what were these capitals like, and how were their polities organized? How did they differ from older Andean settlements and polities? “Middle Horizon” is a period in Peruvian prehistory (Figure 37.1), but cultural dynamics embraced an area much larger than Peru (Figure 37.2). The Middle Horizon was the time when leadership in complexity within the Central Andes shifted from northern Peru and the Pacific coast – especially the spectacular Moche culture (see Chapter 36 in this volume) – to south central Peru, northwestern Bolivia and the Andean highlands (Figure 37.1). A new religious art spread through the Andes, composed of three primary