Domestic Life and Vertical Integration in the Tiwanaku Heartland

Abstract

Recent research on the Tiwanaku state has documented the evolution of regional settlement patterns and agricultural systems, but little is known of changes at the subregional level outside the capital. Analysis of a sequence of domestic occupations excavated at Lukurmata, Bolivia, provides information on how individual households within the Tiwanaku core area were consolidated into the Tiwanaku polity. Changes in residential patterns and artifact assemblages suggest that Lukurmata households were initially connected to the Tiwanaku polity through exchange and religious ties. A new level of assimilation developed in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D. These changes, including agricultural intensification, illustrate the increasing integration of individual households into the Tiwanaku political economy and social order as the landscape developed. The nature and timing of these changes are consistent with current hypotheses of a transformation in Tiwanaku political and economic organization near the end of the Tiwanaku IV period (A.D. 400-800).