Essay On Titicaca

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Introduction to the Titicaca region
Archaeologists date human occupation in the Titicaca region back to at least 10,000 years, with the appearance of hunter-gatherers. The first occupation of the Titicaca Basin is believed to have begun in the Early Archaic period. The occupants lead a hunters/gatherers/fishers kind of lifeway until about 2000 to 1500 BC. At the same time people gradually started to settle in permanent villages and to rely on agriculture and lake resources. From around 1300 to 800 BC some moderately ranked simple chiefly societies developed in the region. The period from 800 BC to AD 500 was a time of complex chiefly development in some parts of the Basin. An early state society known as Tiwanaku evolved by AD 500 or so, and by AD 800 the Tiwanaku sate had established colonies or trade relationships over the entire Titicaca Basin, essentially defining the south-central Andean cultural region (Stanish, 2003). The Tiwanaku state collapses between AD 1000 and 1200 and the Inca, the last indigenous Andean state took control over the region in the late fifteenth century AD.
The Titicaca Basin situated on the boundary between the modern states of Peru and Bolivia is dominated by tropical wet-dry seasons. Erickson (1988) describes the region as having an average temperature of -14oC and 22oC in the dry season, and in the rainy season between -5oC and 23oC. Therefore, frost can occur at any time of the year, which makes the Titicaca Basin a risky environment for agriculture. The altiplano, an alluvial plain area enriched with rainfall activities that are variable throughout the year, provides many limitations to agriculture. Ellenberg (1979) notes that the ecology of the altiplano and the Andes in general has been great...

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...inctions in size, status, and function” (1991). Kolata continues to state that this settlement hierarchy implies “a nested, quadripartite division” of administrative and primary production responsibilities. As seen in the archaeological records, such hierarchical settlement system is an indication of an integrated state. Therefore, Kolata concluded that the Tiwanaku state must have maintained a high degree of administrative efficiency and centralization of agricultural production. Moreover, Kolata concluded that the intensification of agricultural production through large-scale control along the margins of Lake Titicaca was an economic strategy of the Tiwanaku state that was successfully planned and managed by a centralized government.
In contrast, o Early formative o Middle formative o Upper formative o Tiwanaku period o Late Intermediate period o Inca period

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