Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532

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Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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Tiwanaku trade patterns in southern Peru

Charles Stanish a,⇑, Edmundo de la Vega b, Michael Moseley c, Patrick Ryan Williams d, Cecilia Chávez J. e,
Benjamin Vining f, Karl LaFavre g
a
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, A 210 Fowler Bldg., Los Angeles, CA 90095, United States
b
Universidad Nacional del Altiplano, Puno, Peru
c
Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States
d
Department of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, United States
e
Programa Collasuyu, Puno, Peru
f
Department of Archaeology, Boston University, Boston MA, United States
g
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper provides data and analysis from an intensive settlement survey in the southwestern Titicaca
Received 7 April 2010 Basin. This research was designed to assess the nature of Tiwanaku (AD 600–1100) long-distance trade.
Revision received 29 September 2010 The survey area was placed between the prehistoric urban capital of Tiwanaku and its primary colony in
Available online 2 November 2010
Moquegua, a valley located on the Pacific watershed approximately 325 km away. The survey was spe-
cifically placed in an area where GIS analysis indicated a least-cost transit route between Tiwanaku
Keywords: and Moquegua. Field adjustments to the survey area were made based upon informant data about the
Andes
historic location of caravan routes. The results of the survey indicate that there is a light but virtually con-
Peru
Tiwanaku
tinuous string of Tiwanaku occupation along the trails and roads in the area sampled between Tiwanaku
Trade and Moquegua. However, in contrast to the later Inca (AD 1450–1532) period pattern, Tiwanaku did not
Moquegua maintain way stations or build any kind of formal road system. The data indicate that Tiwanaku had
Prehispanic indeed relied upon camelid caravans utilizing the least-cost pathways, but it did so in a more decentral-
Titicaca ized and informal way than the later Inca state.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Trade and the development of archaic states
There is a large theoretical literature that links trade to the
development of political complexity in the premodern world. A
generation ago, leading theorists forcefully argued for trade as
one of the primary catalysts of cultural change (e.g. Adams,
1974; Renfrew, 1969). Over the last three decades, archaeologists
from a wide range of culture areas have focused on the role of
long-distance exchange, commodity production and the develop-
ment of socio-political and economic complexity in states and
complex chiefly societies (e.g. Blanton and Feinman, 1984; Oka
and Kusimba, 2008). The early notions of trade as a ‘‘prime mover”
have been discarded because we now view the development of
complex societies as a more complex phenomenon involving a
number of factors. However, the acquisition of high valued objects
from long distances remains as one of the essential factors in the
development of social complexity.
Simultaneously, there is an emerging literature on the nature of
archaic states that has profound implications for understanding
the role of long-distance exchange in antiquity. Earlier models of
⇑ Corresponding author. Fax: +1 310 206 4723.
E-mail address: Stanish@ucla.edu (C. Stanish).
archaic states tended to see them as small versions of later states
and empires. In these ‘‘essentialist” models, archaic states had
the organizational principles of later ones, such as demarcated ter-
ritories, bureaucracies, large armies, monopolies of force, provin-
cial control structures, and so forth. However, recent work has
suggested that the first-generation states had different political
and geographical configurations than the later more complex ones
(Adams, 2000; Smith, 2005). We now recognize that archaic states
are dynamic, heterogeneous, and constantly shifting their political
alliances and geographical reach. Far from being small versions of
later empires, archaic states oftentimes had structurally different
principles (Algaze, 2005; Feinman and Marcus, 1998). This same
observation holds for Tiwanaku as well, where the most recent
models see a more decentralized and heterogeneous state
(Goldstein, 2005; Stanish, 2002).
As much comparative research demonstrates, first-generation
states sometimes restructure local populations where possible in
or near their core territory in a manner similar to later states
(e.g. Schreiber, 1992). The regional political organization, in con-
trast, is very different than later states that can take advantage of
existing socio-political complexity in conquered territories, or
can mobilize resources to create bureaucracies where little existed
before (Schreiber, 2001). The people who created these first

0278-4165/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2010.09.002
 C. Stanish et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532
political organizations had to make strategic decisions about
where and how to use their limited resources.
There is little dispute that the acquisition of rare and distant re-
sources constituted an important component of archaic state
building practices. Marcus’ (1983) distinction of intra-regional,
interregional and long-distance exchange remains a powerful
way to conceptualize the economic relationships in a complex
political landscape. Intra- and interregional exchange between
neighboring polities and within polities provides the bulk of the
basic provisions, from foodstuffs to domestic pottery. Bulk, low va-
lue domestic items are rarely imported from long distances. Long-
distance trade, in contrast, is generally focused on high-valued and
rarer commodities. For many theorists, the goods procured from
long-distance trade were central to maintaining their political
economies. In this light, the role of long-distance exchange is cen-
tral to the development of archaic states, and the means by which
they conducted that exchange is central to understanding the ori-
gin and structure of complex society.
The Tiwanaku state
The capital of Tiwanaku is located in the southern Titicaca basin
in modern Bolivia less than 20 km s from Lake Titicaca (Figs. 1 and
2). Tiwanaku was the first and only autochthonous state to develop
in the south central Andes. Over the past two decades, we have
learned a great deal about the structure of Tiwanaku society and
the cultural context in which this state emerged. After several cen-
turies of competitive peer polities (Bandy, 2001; Moseley, 1992,
Stanish, 2003), Tiwanaku emerged as the largest political power
in the southern Titicaca Basin. Tiwanaku architects created a
Fig. 1. South America.
525
planned, urban capital that embodied a number of religious and
political constructs unique to its culture creating a monument of
unprecedented sophistication and ideological and political power
(Manzanilla, 1992; Vranich, 1999).
After a generation of intensive research, we can now say with
some confidence that Tiwanaku was an urbanized, class-based
society, centered in a large city (at least 5 km2) located on the alti-
plano at the eponymous site in Bolivia (Alconini Mujica, 1995; Ja-
nusek, 2002). The city was composed of heterogeneous groups of
people from many distant and not-so-distant areas (Janusek,
2004). These groups came from around the entire south central An-
des and presumably maintained or constructed economic ties with
their ancestral lands. Survey data (Albarracin-Jordan, 1996; Bandy,
2004) likewise confirm that urban growth at Tiwanaku was at least
partially made up of immigrants, and was not solely the result of
natural population growth. John Janusek (2004, pp. 163–165) in
particular stresses the strong and enduring ties of many Tiwanaku
residents to distant lands throughout the south central Andes. Fi-
nally, we know that the city of Tiwanaku hosted a class of expert
craft specialists, mainly in architecture and artisan goods such as
pottery, metal, musical instruments and textiles (Rivera Casanovas,
2003).
Tiwanaku and its trade outposts
For decades, we have known that high-valued Tiwanaku arti-
facts (ceramic drinking vessels or keros, incense burners, textiles,
wooden snuff tablets and metal objects) were found throughout
much of the south central Andes. However, the nature of the rela-
tionship between the Tiwanaku capital and its hinterland has been
526 C. Stanish et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532
Fig. 2. South central Andes.
poorly understood. There was and continues to be a strong debate
on the nature of Tiwanaku socio-political complexity and, by
extension, the degree to which Tiwanaku exchange was formally
controlled by the center or was more decentralized among the var-
ious ethnic groups that comprised the state. There are a number of
models of the nature of Tiwanaku interregional interaction in the
literature ranging from the highly centralized (Kolata, 2004) to
the moderately decentralized (Higueras-Hare, 1996; Albarracin-
Jordan, 1996).
Long-distance exchange was not restricted to complex Middle
Horizon (ca. AD 500–1100) societies like Tiwanaku in the south
central Andes. From as early as the Archaic period (ca. 8000–
2000 BC), we have evidence of extensive obsidian exchange around
the south central Andes (Burger et al., 2000; Stanish et al., 2002).
Prior to Tiwanaku emergence, there were dozens of polities that
developed throughout the region where interregional exchange
was a key factor in their growth and regional power (Bandy,
2004). Tiwanaku certainly did not invent massive regional trade
patterns. The question is to what degree did they intensify and for-
malize these ancient patterns of interregional exchange?
Tiwanaku began to expand out of their heartland around AD
600 establishing outposts on the Island of the Sun and Moquegua
by 650 (Seddon, 2005) and in the Puno Bay in the northwest Lake
Titicaca by 700 (Schultze et al., 2009). For the next three or four
centuries, Tiwanaku created a political entity with influence over
a huge area throughout the south central Andes (Fig. 3). There is
good evidence that the Tiwanaku peoples established colonies on
a large scale in at least a half dozen cases including Moquegua
(Goldstein, 2005), Cochabamba (Caballero, 1984), the Puno Bay
(Schultze et al., 2009, the Arapa area (Stanish, 2009), probably
the Azapa valley (Rothhammer and Santoro, 2001) and possibly
the Arequipa region.
The Tiwanaku state also maintained long-term relationships
with autonomous and semi-autonomous groups throughout a vast
area in a number of ecological zones (Orellana, 1984; Torres-Rouff,
2002; Rodman, 1992; Uribe et al., 2007). In fact, most of the region
that was influenced by Tiwanaku was not part of a formal state, but
was rather loosely integrated by social and economic relationships
that we are just beginning to unravel.
Tiwanaku in Moquegua
The largest known colonial settlement of Tiwanaku was located
in the Moquegua valley, approximately 325 km by road or 240 km
in a straight-line distance from the capital city itself (Fig. 4). This
makes the route from Tiwanaku to Moquegua an almost perfect
place to understand the nature of Tiwanaku trade. Moquegua in
particular provides good data on long-distance exchange through-
out prehistory. These data include evidence for Pucara (ca. 400 BC–
AD 300) or Pucara-like pottery in the region (Goldstein, 2000),
Chiripa-like (ca. 1000 BC–200 BC) fiber tempered pottery (Moseley,
1992), and obsidian imports from the Chivay and Alca sources.
Moquegua is the only region in the entire Andes known to date
that has significant settlements from both Tiwanaku and Wari, the
two predominant Middle Horizon states (Moseley et al., 1991).
Wari is represented by the settlement on Cerro Baúl located in
the upper Moquegua valley (Moseley et al., 2005; Nash and
Williams, 2005). Tiwanaku had settlements up and down the
 C. Stanish et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532 527

Fig. 3. The Tiwanaku state in the south central Andes.

Fig. 4. Location of Tiwanaku and its relation to the Moquegua colony.

valley with a major concentration of population around the site this valley. If they were allied or cooperating, then they were only
cluster of Omo located in the mid-Moquegua valley below the able to maintain a joint settlement in one area in the entire Andes.
town of Moquegua itself. If the two states were competitors, then If, like most complex interacting peer polities in history, they alter-
they were unable to dislodge each other for several centuries in nated between being enemies, allies, and neutrals depending upon
528 C. Stanish et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532
the political situation of the moment, then they still maintained a
strict settlement separation for centuries at both a valley-wide and
local level. What is clear is that Moquegua was considered a very
important resource zone for both polities for centuries.
The Tiwanaku complex of Omo has all the hallmarks of a colony.
Goldstein (2000, p. 344) lists 88 Tiwanaku or Tiwanaku-related
(Tumilaca) habitation components in the valley for a total of
141 hectares of total occupation. He likewise (Goldstein, 2005,
p. 220) reports from a Moquegua Tiwanaku site a workshop with
lapis lazuli, sharks’ teeth, shell, and green stone. He argues that
Moquegua was a major source of maize, as indicated by dietary
studies of intensified maize consumption, one of the primary fac-
tors in the Tiwanaku interest in the region (Sandness et al.,
1992). In short, Tiwanaku colonies in Moquegua were maintained
and presumably exploited and provisioned by some state effort.
It is probably no coincidence that the most substantial demo-
graphic transformation in the prehistory of Moquegua took place
during the Tiwanaku period during the 7th century. Small pioneer-
ing communities of altiplano settlers began inhabiting the valley at
sites like Omo (Goldstein, 2005). Concurrently, the Wari began a
campaign of settling the upper valley reaches above 2000 m.a.s.l.
(Williams, 2001). The major Wari center at Cerro Baúl was built
beginning around AD 600. By 900, Tiwanaku settlement reached
a zenith. Large towns were formed at Omo, Chen Chen, and Rio
Muerto in the Valley. A huge necropolis at Chen Chen was dedi-
cated as the final resting place of over 10,000 dead with unequiv-
ocal evidence of Tiwanaku affiliation.
By AD 850, small Tiwanaku settlements were established
around the slopes of the great mesa of Cerro Baúl (Nash and Wil-
liams, 2005). Great feasts on the summit of Cerro Baúl brought in
products from the puna to the sea. These feasts marked Wari iden-
tity but also illustrated an impressively far-flung trade network
from central Argentina to northern Peru (Moseley et al., 2005).
Current archaeological and bioarchaeological data also support
a model of direct colonization by Tiwanaku settlers who were
transplants from the altiplano (Blom et al., 1998; Knudson et al.,
2004; Sutter, 2000), and they brought their ceramic styles, house-
hold forms, metal artifacts (Lechtman and Macfarlane, 2005) and
clothing from their homeland. Wari obsidian came from sources
like Quispisisa and Alca, close to the Wari homeland instead of
the closer sources of Arequipa (Craig et al., 2010). Given that
Moquegua is a very rich maize-growing zone, many Tiwanaku spe-
cialists have argued that maize and chicha (maize beer) were the
principal commodities produced and exported from the valley
(see Moseley, 1992).
Post-Tiwanaku trade between Moquegua and the Titicaca
region
The collapse of Tiwanaku around AD 1000 ushered in a frag-
mented political landscape. The political power in the Titicaca Ba-
sin shifted to the Colla area in the north. However, a vigorous
exchange of goods between the Titicaca Basin and the Moquegua
Valley continued. This is demonstrated by trade goods, particularly
decorated Collao and Sillustani pottery, in Late Intermediate Period
sites (AD 1100–1450) in the upper reaches of the drainage (Stanish,
1989, 1992). The Inca period was characterized by the intensifica-
tion of commodity production and exchange, with the establish-
ment of at several large centers in the Moquegua valley including
Torata Alta, Sabaya, and probably a now-destroyed site in modern
Moquegua City. The Inca and early Colonial period site of Torata
Alta, located below Cerro Baúl, in particular was strongly linked
to the Lupaqa polity during the Inca occupation (Covey, 2000),
again reinforcing the strong altiplano-Moquegua economic
connections.
The early Colonial period is perhaps the best historical analogy
that we have for state-sponsored production and export of high-
valued (alcohol and olives in particular) from Moquegua to the Tit-
icaca Basin. In this case, Catholic churches acted as way stations
where travelers could feed and rest. In this sense, the churches
were sacred places that also had secular functions in a manner
most likely similar to major settlements in all archaic states,
including Tiwanaku and Wari (Moseley et al., 2005).
In this period, Moquegua produced a large quantity of alcohol
for export to the Alto Peru (Bolivia) and the Titicaca Basin. Rice
(1997) notes that there were about 130 wine- and pisco-producing
factories (bodegas) in Moquegua, the majority of which was ex-
ported to the altiplano in large ceramic botijas (pisco is a form of
grape brandy, highly prized in the region). The beverages were sent
in llama caravans (later mules) to the towns of Puno, Juli, Desagua-
dero, La Paz, and Oruro. The route followed is directly in the survey
area. Direct historical analogy therefore supports the observation
that Moquegua was a major producer of commodities of value to
Titicaca Basin polities. In short, the Moquegua valley was a small
but highly productive area for maize and other commodities for
the altiplano region.
The research question
We begin with the empirical observation and theoretical deduc-
tion that long-distance trade is central to the political economies of
the south central Andes. Goods that were traded include metals,
obsidian, coca, feline pelts, maize, maize beer, honey, carved wood,
hallucinogenic compounds, elaborate textiles and high-valued pot-
tery. Obviously, we now know that Tiwanaku had a colonial pres-
ence in Moquegua and there is no question now that access to
long-distance resources was important to Tiwanaku. The data from
the post-Tiwanaku periods from Moquegua indicate how impor-
tant this valley was to south central Andean regional economies.
If any Tiwanaku colony maintained a direct, formal trade relation-
ship with the capital, it should be from a place like Moquegua.
The empirical question before us is: what is the nature of that
trade during the Tiwanaku period? More specifically, the research
question is a test as to whether Tiwanaku established a formal road
and way-station (tambo) system like the later Inca Empire, or if it
relied on less formal mechanisms to exchange with its colonial ter-
ritories. Did Tiwanaku merely follow earlier down-the-line ex-
change relationships that go back to the Late Archaic systems, or
did it invest heavily in this effort like the later Inca state? This
empirical question, in turn, relates back the nature of Tiwanaku’s
political and economic structure in its totality.
We have good archaeological markers of what a formal Andean
state system looks like from our work with Inca settlement pat-
terns from around the Andes (see D’Altroy, 2002 and Hyslop,
1984). Roads tended to be stone lined in many places with canals
built into the road bed to let rain water pass through. Low plat-
forms or elevated roadways were built through swamps. Finally,
way stations were built by local labor recruited through the mit’a
tax. While these tambos were central to the military system, they
also provided a place to rest and get supplies for state-sponsored
travelers. This information, combined with the systematic survey
of the optimal path between Tiwanaku and Moquegua, provided
the data necessary to define the degree to which this long-distance
exchange was centralized or not.
Research design
The research design involved a full-regional coverage system-
atic survey of the modern and historic road in the high country be-
tween Tiwanaku and Moquegua (Figs. 4 and 5). The survey region
 C. Stanish et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532
Fig. 5. Location of survey area and GIS-created least-cost routes.
is in the puna landscape, an ecological zone located above 4000 m
above sea level. It is a dry, rolling alpine landscape characterized
most of the year by sparse vegetation consisting of bunchgrasses
and sedges. Swamps or ‘‘bofedales” are found through the study re-
gion. These perennially wet areas are some of the richest locations
for animal pasture. Rivers cut through the landscape as well and
were a major focus of human settlement. Population densities in
the puna are low today.
Archaeological evidence (Aldenderfer, 1998; Stanish et al.,
1997) likewise indicates that population densities were low in
past. There are some modern towns in the puna, the most notable
in this region being the town of Mazocruz. Today, it has less than
1000 people and is located almost perfectly mid way between
Tiwanaku and the modern town of Moquegua. It is the largest pop-
ulation center between these two areas both today and apparently
in the past. With good water resources and adjacent pasture lands,
it most certainly functioned as a major stop on any traffic between
Moquegua and Tiwanaku.
We covered 100% for approximately 1 km on either side of the
roads and pathways identified by the GIS analysis and those rec-
ommended by informants. The research area is directly in the mid-
dle of the region where least-cost transit models indicate that
caravans would have had to travel to go from Tiwanaku to Moque-
gua (Fig. 5). During the project, it became evident that the modern
and historic road built for wheeled vehicles deviated away from
the terrain where the older llama and alpaca caravans had gone.
This was based on: (1) interviews with local residents, (2) the exis-
tence of modern footpaths that would break away from the mod-
ern road and cut over lower topography eventually meeting back
up with the main route, and (3) observing camelid herds today
as they were moved by shepherds. The research design therefore
required that the survey crew increase their coverage to follow
these routes as well, giving us a comprehensive coverage of all of
the viable roads and trails in the study area identified in the GIS
analysis. We therefore covered an area to the south along a second
trail recommended by local informants. This southern survey area
was outside of the least-cost pathways.
529
In order for a site to be considered ‘‘Tiwanaku”, it had to have at
least one unequivocal decorated piece plus at least ten plainwares
identified as Tiwanaku by Chávez using her extensive attribute
analysis methodology (Chávez, 2010). This conservative method
most likely undercounted the Tiwanaku site number, but it was
necessary to insure that we did not over-interpret the data.
Results
We discovered 182 archaeological sites in the survey, many of
which were multi-component (de la Vega et al., 2009). In total,
there were 95 Archaic period components, 94 Formative period
components, 28 Tiwanaku period components (Fig. 6), 120 Late
Intermediate period components, 125 Inca period components
and 54 Colonial period ones. With the exception of the Archaic per-
iod, the structure of these data are consistent with the survey data
from the Juli-Pomata region near the lake (Stanish et al., 1997). In
the latter survey area, the Tiwanaku period constituted the small-
est number of components. The relatively high number of Archaic
period sites is consistent with what Klink (2005) found in the near-
by Huenque river drainage, the area immediately west from the
Juli region. In contrast, Cipolla (2005) reports on lower densities
in the lakeside Huancané region of the northern lake, consistent
with the Juli-Pomata results. Our survey replicates the known den-
sities of the higher land. In short, the survey data reported on here
are consistent with other surveys in the region in terms of repre-
sentation of site periods.
The Tiwanaku occupation of the survey area can be described as
‘‘light but continuous”, focused on a few sites along the major
roads (Fig. 6). There were no sites in the southern survey leg; Tiwa-
naku diagnostics were only found in the area where the GIS anal-
ysis showed the least-cost pathways. There are just a handful of
sites with Tiwanaku diagnostic materials in any quantity even in
this area. As mentioned, all sites have a number of Tiwanaku
domestic wares along with one or two incontrovertible Tiwanaku
diagnostic pottery fragments. It is very significant that there were
530 C. Stanish et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532
Fig. 6. Tiwanaku sites in the study area.
no domestic pottery Tiwanaku fragments discovered. Virtually all
of the Tiwanaku period sites had only keros and tazones, tradition-
ally used in ritual and feasting.
Sites ranged in size from several hectares to a small scatter of
artifacts on the surface. There was no detectable Tiwanaku surface
architecture from any site. This is consistent with other Tiwanaku
occupied sites discovered in the puna regions of other survey areas
in the Juli-Pomata region and in the northern Titicaca Basin
(Stanish et al., 1997; Stanish, 2009). A strong pattern that emerged
from the data is that Tiwanaku sites were commonly found where
the modern or historic road crossed a river or bofedal (de la Vega
et al., 2009). The location of these sites strongly suggests that ac-
cess to water and being near the road were the primary settlement
determinants. Of the 28 Tiwanaku sites, 22 (76%) had Formative or
probable Formative period occupations. Likewise, 24 Tiwanaku
sites have a later Late Intermediate period occupation. These data,
therefore, indicate a fairly strong continuity in settlement location
throughout millennia.
Interpretations
We found no sites that could be characterized as a Tiwanaku
tambo or roadside way station, let alone a major Tiwanaku site
such as found in other areas of the south central Andes. In fact,
we found no sites of sufficient size and complexity to be described
as a Tiwanaku settlement, but rather what could be best described
as a local Tiwanaku-contemporary one. More likely, these sites
with a few Tiwanaku ritual vessels were autonomous villages that
hosted caravanners who reciprocated with at least Tiwanaku feast-
ing vessels.
The data from this survey support a model of an informal Tiwa-
naku exchange system characterized by caravan trips made by
many disparate people moving goods from the countryside to the
centers or intermediate areas like the Mazocruz area. In their eth-
nography, ‘‘The Flocks of the Wamani”, Flannery et al. (1989, pp.
114–115) describe modern pack trains of as little as 25 animals,
while they note documentary evidence for up to 500–600. Flores-
Ochoa (1979, p. 103) observed similar pack train sizes in his eth-
nography of Paratía herders. Both ethnographies agree that the dis-
tance traveled for pack trains averaged between 15 and 20 km per
day, an observation confirmed by our informants during the
fieldwork.
In model proposed here, traders make their own arrangements
with local populations, or maintain Andean style kin-based rela-
tionships along the routes. Traders provided goods, particularly
Tiwanaku ritual finewares, in return for access to water, grazing
and perhaps protection. Flores-Ochoa describes this kind of kin-
based, reciprocal trading relationships:
‘‘This regular contact [by the traders] with fixed groups of farm-
ers has become institutionalized through bonds based on spiritual
kinships (compadrazgo), with all the obligations and duties this
type of relationship entails . . .Trading occurs as part of a relation-
ship between friends and acquaintances who may have known
each other since childhood, when the herder accompanied his
father to learn about the roads, people, and places he would even-
tually frequent on his own. Thus, these commercial transactions
are not cold, calculating mercantile relationships but rather
exchanges of goods between friends and ritual kinsmen”
(Flores-Ochoa, 1979, p. 108).
The archaeological survey data in the study area differ from
what we would expect from a formal type of state-sponsored
trade. Unlike the Inca period, there is little evidence of any state
investment in long-distance exchange infrastructure, particularly
in the high puna grasslands. Effectively, there are no Cerro Baúls,
Puno Bay sites or other kinds of Tiwanaku enclaves with formal
architecture. We have virtually no newly-founded sites in the
Tiwanaku period; rather artifacts identifiable as Tiwanaku were
found dispersed among a number of multi-component sites in
the study area. The vast majority of these modest settlements were
utilized in both earlier and later periods. Tiwanaku goods in this
system most likely functioned as a form of payment in the recipro-
cal relationships between semi-autonomous actors. Goods almost
certainly passed from the Tiwanaku core and back via llama cara-
vans, perhaps even organized by people living in or near Tiwanaku.
 C. Stanish et al. / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 524–532
However, there is no evidence of state-controlled or sponsored set-
tlements that replicate Tiwanaku architectural canons. The means
by which goods flowed from Tiwanaku to Moquegua and back was
highly informal. The few Tiwanaku pottery fragments found in
existing sites may have simply functioned as form of payment be-
tween caravan traders and local peoples who supplied food, lod-
ging and water for the herds.
Summary
The development of Tiwanaku stands as one of the most inter-
esting and informative case studies in the comparative analysis of
archaic state development. The pathways to first-generation state
development are indeed complex but are not infinite. The role of
long-distance exchange continually emerges as a constant factor
in archaic state development. In the case of Tiwanaku, our data
indicate that colonies were established hundreds of kilometers
around the region. The means by which these colonies were con-
nected with both the capital and other colonies remains a question
for future research. The work here suggests that this relationship
was an informal one, with little evidence of direct state interven-
tion in the actual movement of goods.
In contrast to the Tiwanaku pattern, we did find one major Inca
tambo and a number of relatively large Inca sites on the road in the
study area. In this later period, there are data supporting a model of
a state-maintained system in the Inca period. For all periods prior
to the Inca, including the Tiwanaku period, there is simply no evi-
dence for a substantial state investment in the road system.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Science Founda-
tion (BCS 0621398) and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
Endowments.
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