Early New World Monumentality

15. Agricultural Terraces as Monumental Architecture in the Titicaca Basin: Their Origins in the Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition

15 Agricultural Terraces as Monumental Architecture in the Titicaca Basin Their Origins in the Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition Sergio J. Chávez Dedicated to the memory of Karen L. Mohr Chávez, who was and continues to be the intellectual author of this project. A general reconnaissance of the Titicaca Basin shows that almost all of the landscape has been transformed by human activity into production zones, leaving basically no land in a pristine state. Such transformations are not uniformly present in the basin. Different strategies were used in diverse local environmental, climatic, and topographic conditions, including stone-faced terraces on slopes and steep hills (such as on the Copacabana Peninsula); cultivation on temporarily inundated areas among dispersed sod houses (Chávez 1998); agriculture on raised fields or platforms (e.g., Erickson 1988), agriculture on qocha, or artificial depressions (e.g., Flores and Paz 1985); and herding in bofedales, or artificially irrigated pasture lands (Palacios Ríos 1977). Many are associated with nearby archaeological settlements from different periods of time. Also, in the northwestern basin, radiocarbon dates on charcoal from excavated mounds associated with raised fields show a range of time between 1000 bc and ad 400 (Erickson 1988, 11), which would indicate their beginnings in the Yaya-Mama religious tradition (K. Chávez 1988, 25). Among these various production strategies, terraces are the most impressive in terms of monumental scale, particularly those on the Copacabana Peninsula (Figure 15.1). Based on a priori assumptions, their origins have often been attributed to either the Tiahuanaco or the Inca, who had the power and organizational means to mobilize labor in a large scale. 432 · Sergio J. Chávez Figure 15.1. Map of the Copacabana Peninsula with an inset of the Lake Titicaca Basin showing all the temple sites mentioned in the text. Contour lines are at 100 meters. Drawn by Karen and Sergio Chávez based on topographic maps from the Instituto Geográfico Militar of Peru and Bolivia. However, the results of our long-term research on the Copacabana Peninsula and beyond in the Titicaca Basin strongly support assigning the origin of terrace construction to the Yaya-Mama religious tradition—a basically egalitarian, sedentary, self-sufficient food-producing, noncentralized circumlacustrine tradition. This long-enduring tradition represents the first public architecture and the unification of diverse groups of people in the region, where the landscape was transformed into a series of sacred centers or temple domains (Figure 15.2), and the first organization of labor in the region to build extensive stone-faced terraces. Hence, our consideration of the social, political, and spiritual aspects associated with temples includes the practical dimensions of such temples in terms of controlling the outcomes of agricultural production. Many aspects of the tradition continued (with modifications) into the later Tiahuanaco empire (ca. ad 500–1100), particularly iconography in Huari culture (ca. ad 550–1000) and some architectural features (including terraces) in Inca times. In the following sections I will present information about the magnitude of terrace construction, experiments with stone cutting, ethnographic studies, surface surveys, excavation on terraces, and analysis of relevant Figure 15.2. Distribution of a selected sample of stone sculpture showing the “early” and “late” coexisting versions of the Yaya-Mama religious tradition in the Titicaca Basin and the “late” version extending into the Cuzco Basin. The drawings are not at the same scale and are based on photographs and original rubbings by Karen and Sergio Chávez. 434 · Sergio J. Chávez material derived from our excavations, which sought to define the YayaMama tradition. Magnitude of Terrace Construction The stone-faced terraces range in width from one meter to more than 15 meters and are preserved in some areas to a height of three meters. Following the contour lines on the map shown in Figure 15.1, the distribution is continuous around the entire peninsula, including most areas of the islands of the Sun and Moon and several islands south of the peninsula. Terraces are interrupted only in areas with rock outcrops and steep hills. Calculating the extent of vertical and horizontal distribution of terraces on the Copacabana Peninsula, including the time and labor involved, has been a most difficult task. For example, measuring on a topographic map only the first contour line of terraces near the lake beach and following that line all around the peninsula (Figure 15.1) gives a total of 100 kilometers. However, calculating the...