The Tiwanaku Hinterland

Subsistence Base

1. The Titicaca Basin, especially that area adjacent to the southern (Bolivian) shore constituted the Tiwanaku “sustaining hinterland.” This area supported a number of densely populated sites and smaller rural sites and a large network of specialized agricultural systems, all bound together in an administrative network that created the strong core of the Tiwanaku empire.

2. The region around Lake Titicaca comprises a series of environmental niches whose complementary food resources supported dense populations in the pre-European period and provided the subsistence and demographic base for the establishment of a powerful political entity. The three components of this system were:

Lake Titicaca: lake resources.

Flatlands adjacent to the lake: intensive (raised field) agriculture.

Altiplano: camelid pastoralism.

3. Agriculture represented the intensive source of food production necessary to support the great population with its administrative and social hierarchy, and the political/religious and economic expansion initiated from this secure base.

4. The region is one of climatic extremes with frequent drought, nightly frosts, and windstorms that remove the topsoil. Thus the most important agricultural component of the subsistence system required great attention and application of specialized raised field technology to succeed.

Raised Field Technology

1. Raised field are essentially rectangular raised planting platforms surrounded by water-filled ditches. Large complexes of these raised fields surrounded Lake Titicaca and were served by long canalized rives, canals, dams and aqueducts which collectively formed a complex hydraulic system that required centralized planning to construct and organized labor to maintain, plant and harvest.

2. The soil from excavated ditches was piled high to create the field platforms. The loose, aerated soil created by this process allowed formation of deep root systems and intensive growth.

3. The Tiwanaku administrative authorities supervised regular clearing of plant growth in the canals and ditches surrounding the fields. This, together with fish remains (natural fertilizer) was then placed on the growing platforms to create additional “compost” nutrition for the plants.

4. The water surrounding the ridges heated during the sunny days. At night when frosts occurred this warm water permeated the sides of the platforms, helping to keep roots temperature above freezing. Also the contact of cold air and warm water created local condensation around the plants, which acted as a warm blanket that protected them from the killing cold.

5. Tubers (potatoes) comprised the chief staple food plants grown in the raised field systems. Quinoa, beans, ulluco and cañiwa probably accompanied potatoes as supplementary crops.

6. The size of the raised field areas in the Tiwanaku hinterland according to remains still visible from the air is at least 19,000 hectares (approximately 45,600 acres).

7. Probable carrying capacity for this agricultural resource was approximately 570,000-1,111,500. Because agricultural produce was supplemented by pastoralism and fishing the population size during the period AD 400,1000 was probably in the higher part of the range.

Social Organization of Agricultural Production (see early lectures on ayllu and Inca)

1. By analogy the basic social dynamic for Tiwanaku agriculture based on raised field technology was that known from Inca and later periods. Thus it is likely that economic strategy utilized the fundamental Andean principles as best seen in ayllu organization, with reciprocal obligations between community groups prevailing at the local level. At the state level labor taxation (mit’a) probably obligated local workers to contribute a certain segment of their labor to the state to be primarily used in field construction and maintenance and in working the agricultural cycle.

2. The origins of raised field technology in the period before the formation of Tiwanaku “empire” (800 BC-AD 300) were probably similar to those of canal irrigation of the coast with small-scale local construction run by a few ayllu groups organized within the segmentary system of Andean social organization, if hierarchical organization was necessary at all. However, with the coalescence of the complex Tiwanaku political structure most agricultural production was taken over by the central authority, subsumed within a single extensive system fed by several major water-supply canals and aqueducts and controlled by dams, earth dykes and levees built by state control, and maintained by mit’a workers in the service of the state.

3. Only a relatively few state employees lived in the areas of raised field use - not the type of dispersed residential pattern to be expected in a system where local villages controlled their own sections of agriculture and lived in appropriately-located settlements near to their fields. State administration was 3-tiered. Ultimate control emanated from the ruling elite at Tiwanaku through regional “governors” at two major urban centers, Lukurmata and Pajchiri, and local centers marked by major platform mounds and some specialized architecture located in the rural areas. This latter category of administrative center represented the collection point for agricultural produce that was then transported via major causeways that crossed the agricultural zones to the urban centers where re-distribution occurred.

Herders and Fishers

1. Llama and Alpaca herding has great antiquity in the altiplano. Starting as nomadic hunters of the camelids, inhabitants gradually changed their subsistence emphasis to pastoralism, a way of life where they used domesticated animals for meat and wool. In addition there appears to have been a long religious association of the camelid as seen on their portrayal on Titicaca Basin sculpture from the earliest periods.

2. In pre-Tiwanaku periods herding was probably conducted within the context of ayllu control with herd sizes being limited by available community pastures. However, in later periods the Tiawanaku State became a dominant partner in pastoralism. In this system, a large percentage of the animals was owned by the state and used for transportation and carriage (especially used in the caravans that linked the far-flung dependent economic network of Tiwanaku), wool for textiles, food, and ritual purposes. This may well have been organized in the Inca way with the state taking a two-third portion of animals as they did with land and the llama/alpaca population being divided into three sections - state, religious and community ownership. In more distant rural areas, the local system probably persisted but with villagers owing part of their labor and herds to the state to sustain the caravan traffic

3. Fishing was not such a structurally unified part of the Tiwanaku state economy as agriculture and pastoralism. The Uru fishers were of lowest status and lived along the shores of Lakes Titicaca and Poopó and the Desaguadero River that connects them. While they lived predominantly on fish, fowl and edible plants and weeds of the lake they also to a lesser degree exchanged these for agricultural produce and to some extent even grew their own food. Given the inability of the human population to control the production and breeding of lake creatures, this subsistence segment could not be brought under state control like agriculture and pastoralism. Thus the Uru and their lacustrine products were relatively peripheral to the state system and fish entered the economy through relatively informal exchange rather than a state controlled system.