Tiwanaku en Moquegua: interacciones regionales y colapso

Abstract

Tiwanaku in Moquegua: Regional Interactions and Collapse

The synthesis of data from excavations and systematic survey of the Osmore drainage promotes a new vision of the relationships between Wari, Tiwanaku, and indigenous people of the region during the Middle Horizon and the beginning of the Late Intermediate Period. A series of facts are effectively established that must be considered in future interpretations. Among others, we note the apparent contemporaneity of Tiwanaku and Wari settlements in the middle and upper sections of the Osmore drainage, generally isolated in their own geographic zones. There are no signs of military conflict or fear of it during perhaps centuries of contact, even though both groups considered the site of Cerro Baúl to be a huaca that only the Wari controlled. Nor was there exchange of goods, suggesting social as well as spatial isolation. We describe the contemporaneity of two Tiwanaku traditions, marked by the Omo and Chen Chen ceramic styles, which were previously considered sequential phases. Finally, we confirm that at the end of the Middle Horizon. Wari abandoned the region, leaving people of the Tiwanaku tradition to divide into local groups and flee to distant, defensible sites at the beginning of the troubled times of the Late Intermediate Period.