Rural Settlement and Raised Field Agriculture in the Lake Titicaca
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 404–430 www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa Top-down or bottom-up: rural settlement and raised field agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia John Wayne Januseka,*, Alan L. Kolatab a Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235, United States b Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60137, United States Received 12 May 2004; revision received 10 August 2004 Abstract Differing interpretations regarding the organization of past intensive farming are often distinguished as ‘‘top-down’’ or ‘‘bottom-up’’ perspectives. The development of intensive farming and its social organization are attributed to either nascent states and centralized governments or the incremental work of local communities or kin-based groups. We address the social organization of raised field farming in one region of the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andean altiplano, Bolivia. We evaluate past research in the Katari Valley, including our own, based on recent settlement survey, excava- tion, and a variety of analyses. Taking a long-term perspective covering 2500 years, we find that relations of production and rural organization changed greatly over time in relation to changing sociopolitical conditions. Local communities played dynamic roles in the development and organization of raised field farming, yet its intensification and ultimate recession were keyed to the consolidation and decline of the Tiwanaku state. We conclude that the top-down/bot- tom-up dichotomy is overdrawn. Local communities and their productive practices never operated in a political or eco- nomic vacuum but both shaped and were transfigured by regional processes of state formation, consolidation, and fragmentation. Ó 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Rural settlement; Raised fields; Andes; Lake Titicaca; Tiwanaku Over the past fifty years rural society and agrarian recent studies have focused on the inseparable and dy- landscapes have become increasingly important themes namic interactions of past societies and their regional in the study of past complex societies. Beginning with physical settings and environmental conditions (Ashmore Gordon WilleyÕs study of settlement systems in Peru, re- and Bernard, 1999; Bender, 1993; Bradley, 1998; Crum- gional studies were foundational in emphasizing the ley, 1994, 2001; Fischer et al., 1999; Gartner, 1999; Kirch importance of documenting all settlements, cultural fea- and Hunt, 1997; Kolata, 1996b; Thurston, 1999; Tilley, tures, and environmental conditions in a given landscape 1994). Such studies emphasize that past landscapes were (e.g., Flannery, 1976; Parsons, 1972; Willey, 1953). Most products, in part, of concrete human activity and experi- ence, and thus were deeply imbued with social signifi- * Corresponding author. cance. Such an approach encourages a shift toward E-mail address: [email protected] (J.W. understanding the fundamental cultural and environmen- Janusek). tal matrices that gave rise to past cities and states. 0278-4165/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2004.08.001 J.W. Janusek, A.L. Kolata / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 404–430 405 Nevertheless, fundamental interpretive and epistemo- power relations, and ruling regimes of past imperial logical differences, with roots in the foundations of Wes- systems is not just outmoded, it can be considered tern social thought, typify rural and landscape studies. unethical. On the one hand, since the 1950s it has been common Interpretive differences habitually follow old theo- to attribute development of large-scale farming and irri- retical divides. Regarding the organization of past pro- gation systems to centralized governments and nascent duction systems, the debate has been construed as states. Paradigmatic of such a perspective is WittfogelÕs ‘‘top-down’’ versus ‘‘bottom-up’’ interpretations (1957) model of ‘‘hydraulic civilizations,’’ in which states (Chambers, 1980; Erickson, 1993; Fischer et al., emerged to organize the construction, maintenance, and 1999). Proponents of both interpretations argue that labor coordination that was deemed necessary to man- intensive production was a highly effective, if costly age large-scale irrigation systems in challenging environ- means of adapting to particularly rigorous environ- mental conditions. Even though evidence globally ments. Following top-down interpretations, intensive demonstrates that complex irrigation systems rarely production was developed under the impetus of cen- caused states to develop, it is common in archaeology tralized state governments. Following bottom-up inter- to attribute archaeological evidence of large scale, highly pretations, intensive agriculture was developed and integrated productive systems to the work of efficient, organized locally, without the involvement of overarch- centralized governments. In this view such systems, like ing state systems or despite their impact. In one view, monumental architecture, imply the hand of a powerful the dynamic locus is the state, and in the other it is state. the local community or kin-based group. The terms Recent alternative perspectives emphasize that cul- of debate, we believe, have been distorted by current tural creativity and political power was also the product disciplinary ethics that encourage the construction of of local groups, not simply rulers and central govern- easily-debunked ‘‘straw man’’ models, often without ments. In many world regions, convincing evidence dem- benefit of new empirical data. Determining who devel- onstrates that cultural elements once considered as oped and managed intensive production in any specific diagnostic of state-directed actions, including monu- case and with what technologies and resources requires mental construction, craft specialization, and large-scale rigorous interdisciplinary collaboration and empirical economic production, were at least as much the product research. of local kin-based groups as of the elites and leaders In this paper we critically review recent research who, in some cases, coordinated such activities (Mose- bearing on the prehistoric organization of rural settle- ley, 1992; Pauketat, 2000). Local communities, social ment and intensive farming in the southern Lake Titic- groups, and political factions played key roles in the for- aca Basin of the Andean altiplano, Bolivia (Fig. 1A). mation and collapse of many complex societies in the Specifically, we detail shifting relations of prehispanic New World (Brumfiel, 1994; Joyce and Weller, 2005). settlement and production in the Katari River Valley In the Andes abundant anthropological research illumi- (Fig. 1B). The region is pivotal in part because it com- nates the fundamental roles of kin-based groups and prised, for several centuries, a major segment of the communities in managing long-distance exchange, craft core of Tiwanaku, a prehispanic state that emerged production, and intensive farming (Browman, 1997; around AD 500 in the Tiwanaku Valley just to the Erickson, 1985, 1988; Janusek, 1999, 2002; Kolata, south (Kolata, 1993; Ponce, 1981). In the past few dec- 2003; Murra, 1972; Nielson, 2001; Nu´n˜ez and Dillehay, ades researchers have systematically studied native 1995). agrarian systems, in particular ancient raised field However, as with WittfogelÕs position, attention to farming, in the Lake Titicaca basin and elsewhere local foundations for power is problematic when it be- (Denevan, 1970; Erickson, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1993; comes a bias determining ex ante the interpretation of Kolata, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1991, 1996a; Lennon, 1983; empirical evidence. Such a situation has developed in Smith et al., 1968). This research has generated a the current climate of the social sciences in general, vigorous debate centering on a few key questions: and in anthropology in particular, to the extent that When were raised fields built and by whom? When the traditional role of writing about and interpreting and why were they abandoned? Did raised fields other cultures has accreted a moral role of writing require state management, or were they the exclusive and speaking for other cultures. Often linked to such domain of local communities? With fresh and extensive a position is a romantic ‘‘lure of the local’’ (Lippard, data we re-examine the empirical record, accentuating 1997) and its corollary, an ascription of negative value complexities and temporal shifts in relations among to the imperial and the exploitative in favor of those state institutions, local communities, and the develop- deemed subdominant or colonized. Illuminating the ment of intensive farming. role of local groups and communities and giving them The polarized character of theoretical differences ‘‘voices’’ has become the symbolic capital of anthro- coupled with a lack of rigorous empirical research in pology. In this climate attention to the institutions, much of the Lake Titicaca basin emphasizes the need 406 J.W. Janusek, A.L. Kolata / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23 (2004) 404–430 Fig. 1. Maps of the Lake Titicaca Basin (A) and the Tiwanaku and Katari Valleys (B), showing areas and sites of particular significance. for a research design focused precisely on these prob- Graffam, 1990, 1992; Kolata, 1986, 1991). Disagreement lems. The Katari Valley and its low flood plain, the Koa- in the region has turned on results of small-scale re- ni Pampa, is one major focus of such a debate (Fig. 2; search, including general