When Julian Steward organized the Handbook of South American Indians, he placed Andean cultures in Volume 2, titled “The Andean Civilizations,” (Steward 1946). Andean societies, and particularly those of the Central Andes, were the only ones recognized as “civilized,” by Steward and his colleagues.
Answering the question “When did Central Andean cultures evolve into civilizations?” the best consensus has been the Middle Horizon, from about AD cal 650 to 1050. Specifically, the Middle Horizon Wari and Tiwanaku social formations were civilizations—with cities (Isbell and Vranich 2004; Isbell et al. 1991; Kolata 1993; Ponce 1981; but see Makowski, chapter 32 of this volume), state government (Isbell and Schreiber 1978; Kolata 1993; Janusek 2004) and maybe even imperial systems of expansion (Isbell and Cook 2002; Stanish 2003; Schreiber 2005). In terms of archaeological evidence, both Wari and Tiwanaku had complex settlement hierarchies. But what were these capitals like, and how were their polities organized? How did they differ from older Andean settlements and polities?
“Middle Horizon” is a period in Peruvian prehistory (Figure 37.1), but cultural dynamics embraced an area much larger than Peru (Figure 37.2). The Middle Horizon was the time when leadership in complexity within the Central Andes shifted from northern Peru and the Pacific coast - especially the spectacular Moche culture (see Chapter 36 in this volume) - to south central Peru, northwestern Bolivia and the Andean highlands (Figure 37.1). A new religious art spread through the Andes, composed of three primary
Supernatural images. From new urban capitals in central highland Fern and Lake Titicaca Bolivia, the distinctive religious icons diagnostic of the Middle Horizon reached the northern Peruvian mountains and coast. In the south they dispersed through the highlands, reaching southern Bolivia and the eastern valleys that descend to tropical forests - among them, Cochabamba with its immense mounds and idyllic conditions for maize agriculture. Northern Chile, at least as far south as San Pedro de Atacama, participated in this great interaction sphere, as did northwestern Argentina’s La Aguada cultural style (see Chapter 30 in this volume; Figures 30.5, 30.6).
In recent years discussions of the Middle Horizon have centered around chronology of Wari and Tiwanaku development, the origin and spread of the distinctive iconography, the development of the two great capital cities, and the organization of their polities. The spread of Middle Horizon art implies some sort of unification; did it represent pre-Inca Empire, or something more limited? However, at least in part because Tiahuanaco is in Bolivia, and Huari is in Peru (where even chronological conventions are different), and perhaps also because Tiahuanaco has been recognized as an archaeological center for centuries, while Huari’s first archaeological descriptions appeared in the 1940s, investigators study one or the other, but very rarely both [Note 1]. Treating the two together is progressive, although it is surely the only way to understand the Middle Horizon, and the way it changed Central Andean trajectories of cultural evolution.
Middle Horizon art was discovered at Tiahuanaco, and named after the site (Stubel and Uhle 1892). Subsequently, many archaeologists assumed that Tiwanaku iconography originated at Tiahuanaco, creating a “Tiahuanaco First” slant to Middle Horizon studies. This is wrong, but an error easily made in light of the name. To avoid unwarranted implications of the name, I suggest a neutral acronym, SAIS (Southern Andean Iconographic Series) for Middle Horizon art formerly called “Tiahuanaco,” “Coast Tiahuanaco,” “Epigonal” and many other names.
Figure 37.2. Map of the Wari and Tiwanaku spheres, locating the cities of Huari and Tiahuanaco within each, as well as other major sites and locations discussed. (William H. Isbell)
World History
