It is possible that the name Tiwanaku does not sound too much. It is not among the great most famous pre -Hispanic civilizations such as the Incas, Aztecs or Maya. However, this missing society before Europeans arrived in the South American continent reached unique dominance of their surroundings.
The last discovery is proof of this.
More than 200 kilometers. A team of researchers has documented a temple built by the civilization of Tiwanaku. This temple was found about 210 kilometers south of the power center of this civilization which allows us to better understand the geographical extension of the domain of this pre -Columbian culture.
The state of Tiwanaku. There is little we know today about Tiwanaku. This civilization would have emerged south of Lake Titicaca, in what is now Bolivia. Tiwanaku would have managed to be one of the most powerful civilizations on the continent, but disappeared around the year 1000 of our era, giving rise to the arrival of the Incas that would dominate the region five centuries later.
This civilization would have achieved, explains the team responsible for the new discovery, an advanced social structure and left behind traces of its architecture in the form of pyramids, staggered temples and monoliths, distributed in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca. However, delimiting the area of influence of Tiwanaku is difficult among those who study this civilization. The last discovery can be helpful.
The Palaspata temple. The site was baptized as the Palaspata temple in reference to the name by which the natives call in the area. As described, these ruins show a rectangular complex with 125 meters long and 145 wide. He would have had 15 home run and an inner courtyard. The temple disposition would not have been random since it is aligned with the equinox.
In the enclosure, fragments of Keru glasses were found, which were used for chicha consumption, a corn beer. Corn is not a local crop so the team considers that Palaspata’s environment would have been a commercial node in the Tiwanaku civilization.
Combining techniques. To study the diffuse brands left by the old temple the team had to combine different satellite images, images that combined with those taken by drones with those who fly over the site. They also resorted to the photogrammetry technique, that is, three -dimensional reconstruction from multiple photographs.
The details of the study were published in an article in the magazine Antiquity.
Recycling the stones. Although we have just discovered the nature of this archaeological site, the environment was well known by local people. In fact, some of the stones and artifacts that constituted this temple had been “recycled” by local farmers in their own constructions.
A triple border. Palaspata’s significance lies in its location as we indicated at the beginning, a “strategic” location for those responsible for the finding. This area, they explain, connected three of the main trade routes that communicated three valleys with two ecosystems: the high and fertile lands next to Lake Titicaca; The Andean Altiplano, livestock zone where the flames grew; and the Andean valleys east of Cochabamba, another agrarian region.
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Image | José Capriles / Penn State
