By finding out ancient statues in South America, a bunch of researchers from Arizona State University have gleaned additional insights into the cosmological and political energy of an ancient civilization.
The group, from ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, investigated the origins of volcanic stone that was used to supply sculptures of human-animal hybrids — known as chachapumas — and located that the stone was cultivated from sacred areas greater than 40 km (almost 25 miles) away.
These statues have been created in the early metropolis of Tiwanaku, a pre-Colombian civilization that flourished from 500–1,000 CE, situated in the Lake Titicaca basin of Bolivia.
“The significance lies in the fact that, although the people of Tiwanaku had access to local stone resources, they chose to transport volcanic stone from more distant locations, a process that would have required considerable effort and coordination,” mentioned Luis Flores-Blanco, lead writer of the examine and postdoctoral scholar with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.
“This evidence suggests that practical considerations alone cannot explain these decisions. Instead, the symbolic importance of the regions from which these stones were obtained likely influenced the selection of materials used to create these sculptures,” he mentioned.
The findings reveal and open new prospects for archaeologists to research how pilgrimage facilities like Tiwanaku emerged and have been inbuilt the ancient Andes.
By suggesting that the supplies used to assemble the sculptures might have carried meanings that reach past purely sensible perform, the findings present a possible hyperlink between sacred locations and broader regional landscapes.
These findings additionally characterize a breakthrough in figuring out the origins of volcanic rock, like the ones used to make the Tiwanaku sculptures, a query that has traditionally posed a tough problem for archaeologists.
“The Titicaca Basin is geologically diverse, with numerous volcanic formations that can appear very similar to one another,” Flores-Blanco mentioned. “Unlike obsidian, which has been extensively studied and for which well-established sourcing methods exist, determining the provenance of other volcanic rocks has remained much more challenging. As a result, the origins of the stones used to make many Tiwanaku sculptures have remained an open question for decades.”
Researchers have been in a position to obtain this scientific breakthrough via the use of moveable X-ray fluorescence tools and statistical methodologies to conduct a compositional evaluation of eight Tiwanaku chachapumas.
“Portable XRF allowed us to analyze the chemical composition of the sculptures in a non-destructive way, which is especially important when working with museum collections and culturally significant artifacts,” Flores-Blanco mentioned. “To strengthen our interpretations, we also reanalyzed geological samples using laboratory-based XRF at ASU’s METAL facilities, providing an independent line of instrumental validation. By combining these geochemical data with multivariate statistical analyses, we were able to identify geological sources whose chemical signatures most closely matched those of the chachapuma sculptures.”
Next steps for the researchers embody plans to develop this analysis by analyzing a bigger quantity of sculptures and geological samples from throughout the Titicaca Basin.
“We are particularly interested in comparing Tiwanaku with earlier centers such as Pucara in the northern Titicaca region to investigate whether the emergence of Andean states was connected to the creation of pilgrimage centers built using materials from sacred landscapes,” Flores-Blanco mentioned.
They additionally plan to include new analytical methods that the researchers just lately performed at the Field Museum in Chicago, known as laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry evaluation, to attain even larger decision geochemical characterization to be able to proceed to uncover deeper insights into the improvement of ancient civilizations.
“Ultimately, we want to understand whether the movement of stone from sacred mountains and other meaningful places played a role in the development of political authority, religious practice and state formation in the ancient Andes,” Flores-Blanco mentioned.
About the examine
The article “Volcanic stone sculptures of were-animals at Tiwanaku: pXRF and statistical analyses suggest regional geochemical provenance of chachapuma statues” was just lately revealed in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Patrick Ryan Williams, professor and faculty director, additionally served as a co-author of the article.