Sonia Alconini | |
---|---|
Born | Sonia Alconini Mujica 1965 |
Nationality | Bolivian |
Occupation | Archaeologist |
Sonia Alconini Mujica (born 1965) is a Bolivian anthropologist and archaeologist specializing in the socioeconomic and political development of early states and empires in the Andes. She has studied the dynamics of ancient imperial frontiers, and the ways in which Guarani tropical tribes expanded over these spaces. She has also conducted work in the eastern Bolivian valleys and Lake Titicaca region.
Sonia Alconini Mujica was born 1965 in Bolivia and developed an early interest in the political formations of early Andean societies and the use of archaeology to improve the understanding of cultural relationships. [1] In 1992, she participated in the Taraco Archaeological Project of UC Berkeley at Chiripa, an ongoing project aimed at unraveling the socioeconomic and political development of the Formative Period of the Lake Titicaca basin. Pottery shards excavated at the site were from Chiripa, Chiripa-Mamani, and Tiwanaku III, IV, and V phases of civilization. [2] She completed her undergraduate degree in 1993 from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz [3] and went on to study at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a master's degree in anthropology in 2000 and a PhD in archaeology in 2002. In 2004, Alconini was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and in 2010, she was promoted to an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology. [4]
Her early research focused on the spread of the Inka into the Bolivian highlands and their impact on the civilizations already in the area, showing interaction between cultures rather than domination. [5] She won a US National Science Foundation grant in 2007 to further explore the boundaries of the Inka expansion and clarify changes before and after Inka contact. The aim of the project was to determine how contact with the Inka effected settlement patterns and the political economy of the area. [6] In 2009, Alconini's excavations in the Charazani valley, the ancient imperial center of the Kallawayas, at a site called Pata Kaata yielded new insights into the evolution of the area, the range of activities which took place in its sacred sites, the process used to maintain political legitimacy and the hierarchy of the cultures at the borders of Lake Titicaca. [7] In 2013, her collaboration with Sara Becker of the University of California at Riverside at the Wata Wata site, uncovered three skulls, two belonging to women. Examination showed ritual acts of violence, including beheading and removal of the eyes with no sign of battle injury. The discovery scuttled a long-held belief that images of violence were not literal depictions but were illustrative. [8] Alconini's assessment of the evidence concluded that the inhabitants of Tiwanaku empire in the Kallawaya region of Bolivia, used trade, religion, and ritual violence as political strategies to retain power. [9]
Tiwanaku is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and include decorated ceramics, monumental structures, and megalithic blocks. In AD 800 the site has been conservatively estimated to have been inhabited by 10,000 to 20,000 people.
Bautista Saavedra is one of the twenty provinces of the Bolivian La Paz Department situated in the northwestern parts of the department. It was created on November 17, 1948 in honor of Bautista Saavedra Mallea (1870-1939) who was Bolivia's president from 1920 to 1925. The capital of the province is Charazani.
Ingavi is a province in the La Paz Department in Bolivia. This is where the Battle of Ingavi occurred on November 18, 1841, and where the World Heritage Site of Tiwanaku is situated.
Isla del Sol is an island in the southern part of Lake Titicaca. It is part of Bolivia, and specifically part of the La Paz Department. Geographically, the terrain is harsh; it is a rocky, hilly island with many eucalyptus trees. There are no motor vehicles or paved roads on the island. The main economic activity of the approximately 800 families on the island is farming, with fishing and tourism augmenting the subsistence economy. Of the several villages, Yumani and Challapampa are the largest.
Puquina is a small, putative language family, often portrayed as a language isolate, which consists of the extinct Puquina language and Kallawaya, although it is assumed that the latter is just a remnant of the former mixed with Quechuan. Puquina speakers are last mentioned in the early nineteenth century.
The Chiripa culture existed between the Initial Period/Early Horizon, from 1400 to 850 BCE along the southern shore of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
Johan Reinhard is an American anthropologist and archaeologist. Currently, he is a Research Professor at Future Generations University. formerly Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. He is also a senior research fellow at The Mountain Institute, a visiting professor at Catholic University, Salta, Argentina, an honorary professor of Catholic University, Arequipa, Peru.
Kallawaya, also Callahuaya or Callawalla, is an endangered, secret, mixed language in Bolivia; another name sometimes used for the language is Pohena. It is spoken by the Kallawaya people, a group of traditional itinerant healers in the Andes in their medicinal healing practice living in Charazani, the highlands north of Lake Titicaca, and Tipuani.
Pumapunku or Puma Punku is a 6th-century T-shaped and strategically aligned man-made terraced platform mound with a sunken court and monumental structure on top that is part of the Pumapunku complex, at the Tiwanaku Site near Tiwanacu, in western Bolivia. The Pumapunku complex is an alignment of plazas and ramps centered on the Pumapunku platform mound. Today the monumental complex on top of the platform mound lies in ruins.
Arthur Posnansky (1873–1946), often called "Arturo", was an Austrian engineer, explorer, ship’s navigator, entrepreneur, La Paz city council member, and amateur archaeologist. During his lifetime, Posnansky was known as a prolific writer and researcher and for his active participation in the defense and development of Bolivia. He is well known for his books, including Tihuanacu, the Cradle of American Man, Campana de Acre, La Lancha "Iris", Die Osterinsel und ihre praehistorischen Monumente, and Razas y Monumentos Prehistóricos del Altiplano Andino. Many, if not most, of his theories have been rejected by modern scholars.
The Mollo culture existed in Bolivia's altiplano area after the collapse of the Tiwanaku culture during the period of AD 1000 to 1500; it predated the Inca civilization. While the Mollo showed a continuity with Late Tiwanaku culture in both domestic and village architecture, they left no pyramids. Mollo worshiped the jaguar.
Taraco Municipality is the seventh municipal section of the Ingavi Province in the La Paz Department, Bolivia. Most of its area is situated on Taraco Peninsula jutting into Lake Wiñaymarka, the southern branch of Lake Titicaca. Its seat is Taraco.
The Andean civilizations were South American complex societies of many indigenous people. They stretched down the spine of the Andes for 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from southern Colombia, to Ecuador and Peru, including the deserts of coastal Peru, to north Chile and northwest Argentina. Archaeologists believe that Andean civilizations first developed on the narrow coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. The Caral or Norte Chico civilization of coastal Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, dating back to 3500 BCE. Andean civilization is one of the six "pristine" civilizations of the world, created independently and without influence by other civilizations.
The National Museum of Archaeology of Bolivia is the national archaeology museum of Bolivia. It is located in the capital of La Paz, two blocks east of the Prado. Operated by the National Institute of Archaeology, a specialized agency of the Deputy Minister of Culture, it is said to be the most prominent museum in Bolivia. The museum represents the cultural antecedents of the Bolivian people from the pre-Columbian era. There are displays of carved sculptures, as well as ceramic and painted objects in stone and metals.
Kimsa Chata, also spelled Kimsachata, is a 4,735-metre-high (15,535 ft) mountain in the Andes in Bolivia. It is located in the Chilla-Kimsa Chata mountain range south-east of Wiñaymarka Lake, the southern part of Lake Titicaca. It lies in the La Paz Department, Ingavi Province, Tiwanaku Municipality, about 15 km south of the archaeological site of Tiwanaku and the village of the same name. Kimsa Chata is situated between the mountains Nasa Puqi in the north and Chuqi Ch'iwani in the south.
Tiwanaku River or Wakira River is a Bolivian river southeast of Lake Titicaca in the La Paz Department, Ingavi Province, in the municipalities of Guaqui and Tiwanaku, and in the Los Andes Province, Laja Municipality. It empties into Wiñaymarka Lake, the southern part of Lake Titicaca, north of Guaqui (Waki) near the villages of Jawira Pampa and Uma Marka. On its way along the southern slopes of the Taraco range it flows along the archaeological site of Tiwanaku.
Pucará, Puno is a town in the Puno Region, Lampa Province, Pucará District, Peru. It is located to the north-west of Lake Titicaca.
The Tiwanaku Polity was a Pre-Columbian polity in western Bolivia based in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Tiwanaku was one of the most significant Andean civilizations. Its influence extended into present-day Peru and Chile and lasted from around 600 to 1000 AD. Its capital was the monumental city of Tiwanaku, located at the center of the polity's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. This area has clear evidence for large-scale agricultural production on raised fields that probably supported the urban population of the capital. Researchers debate whether these fields were administered by a bureaucratic state (top-down) or through a federation of communities with local autonomy. Tiwanaku was once thought to be an expansive military empire, based mostly on comparisons to the later Inca Empire. However, recent research suggests that labelling Tiwanaku as an empire or even a state may be misleading. Tiwanaku is missing a number of features traditionally used to define archaic states and empires: there is no defensive architecture at any Tiwanaku site or changes in weapon technology, there are no princely burials or other evidence of a ruling dynasty or a formal social hierarchy, no evidence of state-maintained roads or outposts, and no markets.
Alexei Vranich is an American archaeologist specializing in the pre-Columbian South America. His previous positions include Visiting Professor at the University of Warsaw, Poland (2021-22), Lecturer at the Department of Material Sciences at MIT (2021-22), Research Associate, and Assistant Dean at Bowles Hall Residential College (2016-18) at the University of California, Berkeley, Research Associate and Visiting Assistant Professor (2009-2015) at UCLA, and a Lecturer and Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania from 1999 to 2004. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990 and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. He is a Fulbright Scholar and Dumbarton Oaks Harvard Fellow. Vranich is presently teaching and conducting research at the University of Warsaw, Poland.
Carlos Ponce Sanginés was a Bolivian archaeologist and restorer who dedicated a significant part of his life to the study of Tiwanaku.