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the Bolivian high plateau, situated between the two Andean cordilleras, at an altitude of c. 3800-4000 metres above sea level. The Tiwanaku State (Tiwanaku IV and V, c. AD 500- 50) - the heartland of which was situated in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin - was one of the most important pre-Inca civilisations of the South Central Andes. Since the late 1950s - and especially since the mid- 1980s - understanding of the Tiwanaku culture has increased rapidly. However, no systematic study of Tiwanaku burial practices - combining older and newer archaeological data with information from historical and ethnographic sources - has been available. This study fills this gap and furthers advances the general understanding of the Tiwanaku culture. ... Read more

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This remarkable study is the culmination of thirty years' research into the possibility that the continent we know today as 'South America' is none other than the ancient continent of Atlantis. Assembling a wide body of evidence, the study concludes that the fabled lost city of Atlantis itself, as described by Plato, may have existed on the Altiplano in Bolivia, identifying a site complete with a rectangular plain, concentric rings of land and water channels just as Plato described it. The true history of this remote, beautiful and fascinating region was lost as a result of the Spanish Conquest when the continent was renamed America. Indeed the first accounts of Inca history by Spanish writers of the period, later suppressed by the authorities and only recently made public, confirm that 'America' was originally known as Atlantis.Now, for the first time, Jim Allen's research presents an 'Atlantis theory' backed up with full documentation of a site which corresponds to Plato's detailed description on a wide variety of points: the level rectangular plain, the mysterious metal 'orichalcum', red, black and white stones, hot and cold springs, the five pairs of twin sons, as well as the local legend of a city sunk by earthquakes, leaving a site which can still be visited today. The book is lavishly illustrated with line drawings and photographs, many taken during the author's expeditions in the field. ... Read more

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Household archaeology, together with community and regional settlement information, forms the basis for a unique local perspective of Andean prehistory in this study of the evolution of the site of Lukurmata, a pre-Columbian community in highland Bolivia. First established nearly two thousand years ago, Lukurmata grew to be a major ceremonial center in the Tiwanaku state, a polity that dominated the south-central Andes from a.d. 400 to 1200. After the Tiwanaku state collapsed, Lukurmata rapidly declined, becoming once again a small village. In his analysis of a 1300-year-long sequence of house remains at Lukurmata, Marc Bermann traces patterns and changes in the organization of domestic life, household ritual, ties to other communities, and mortuary activities, as well as household adaptations to overarching political and economic trends.Prehistorians have long studied the processes of Andean state formation, expansion, and decline at the regional level, notes Bermann. But only now are we beginning to understand how these changes affected the lives of the residents at individual settlements. Presenting a "view from below" of Andean prehistory based on a remarkably extensive data set, Lukurmata is a rare case study of how prehispanic polities can be understood in new ways if prehistorians integrate the different lines of evidence available to them.Household archaeology, together with community and regional settlement information, forms the basis for a unique local perspective of Andean prehistory in this study of the evolution of the site of Lukurmata, a pre-Columbian community in highland Bolivia. First established nearly two thousand years ago, Lukurmata grew to be a major ceremonial center in the Tiwanaku state, a polity that dominated the south-central Andes from a.d. 400 to 1200. After the Tiwanaku state collapsed, Lukurmata rapidly declined, becoming once again a small village. In his analysis of a 1300-year-long sequence of house remains at Lukurmata, Marc Bermann traces patterns and changes in the organization of domestic life, household ritual, ties to other communities, and mortuary activities, as well as household adaptations to overarching political and economic trends.Prehistorians have long studied the processes of Andean state formation, expansion, and decline at the regional level, notes Bermann. But only now are we beginning to understand how these changes affected the lives of the residents at individual settlements. Presenting a "view from below" of Andean prehistory based on a remarkably extensive data set, Lukurmata is a rare case study of how prehispanic polities can be understood in new ways if prehistorians integrate the different lines of evidence available to them. ... Read more

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In 2005, Denver Art Museum hosted a symposium in conjunction with the exhibition Tiwanaku: Ancestors of the Inca. An international array of scholars of Tiwanaku, Wari, and Inca art and archaeology presented results of the latest research conducted in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. This copiously illustrated volume, edited by Margaret Young-Sánchez of Denver Art Museum, presents revised and amplified papers from the symposium.

Essays by archaeologists Alexei Vranich and Leonardo Benitez (both University of Pennsylvania) describe what their excavation and astronomical research has yielded at the site of Tiwanaku, in Bolivia. Georgia DeHavenon (Brooklyn Museum) surveys historical research and publications on Tiwanaku and its monuments. Christiane Clados (Free University of Berlin) and William Conklin (Field Museum, Textile Museum) each analyze style and modes of representation in Tiwanaku art and arrive at provocative conclusions. R. Tom Zuidema reconsiders Tiwanaku iconography and sculptural composition, discerning complex calendrical information. Through a detailed analysis of Tiwanaku iconography, Krysztof Makowski (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru) examines the nature of Tiwanaku religious thought. Archaeologists and iconographers William Isbell (State University of New York, Binghamton) and Patricia Knobloch (Institute of Andean Studies) thoroughly discuss what they term the Southern Andean Interaction Sphere, which encompasses Tiwanaku, Wari, Pucara, and Atacama traditions. Wari tunics and their imagery are examined by Susan Bergh (Cleveland Museum of Art), yielding evidence of ranking. And John Hoopes (University of Kansas) discusses both archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence of links between ancient Tiwanaku and the later Inca.

Bringing together current research on Pucara, Tiwanaku, Wari, and Inca art and archaeology, this volume will be an important resource for scholars and enthusiasts of ancient South America. ... Read more

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Book Review

Many people merely dream of traveling around the world. This highly unusual man acts on his dreams. Every time he starts to wonder about an interesting place he has not been, he simply packs his bags, grabs a camera and goes to the airport to claim his seat. Soon he is in Brazil, China, Africa or anywhere there are people to meet, things to see and do, like taking pictures, buying art, shaking hands, asking questions and being entertained by professional guides and story tellers. "Hello, how are you, good to meet you. I'm Leon Freeman from Memphis, Tennessee." I found his introduction by a tribesman in Papua New Guinea as a cousin the most striking story of them all.

Mr. Freeman retired from his school teaching career and immediately set out to explore the world. Over the years he visited five continents, sixty-two countries and a string of islands ringing the globe like pearls. He discovered one satisfying fundamental fact: in human essence, we are all one. Whatever differences there might be in our outer physical appearance or our diverse cultural extensions, there are no qualitative differences to the principle: 'all human babies are created equal.'

In this picture book, Mr. Freeman provides the viewer with unforgettable, vicarious experiences to enjoy time and time again for many years to come.

- Maia Jaribu Ajanaku, SMU - Retired Teacher, Entrepreneur ... Read more

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What Abercrombie gives us is an understanding of how people inan Andean community shape, rethink, and reshape their past.Gary Urton,author of The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of theInkasPathways of Memory and Power crosses the disciplinary boundarywhere anthropology and history meet, exploring the cultural frontier ofthe colonial and postcolonial Andes. Thomas A. Abercrombie uses hisfieldwork in the Aymara community of Santa Barbara de Culta, Bolivia,as a starting point for his ambitious examination of the relationsbetween European forms of historical consciousness and indigenousAndean ways of understanding the past. Writing in an invitingfirst-person narrative style, Abercrombie confronts the ethics offieldwork by comparing ethnographic experience to the power-ladencontexts that produce historical sources.Making clear the early anddeep intermingling of practices and world views among Spaniards andAndeans, Christians and non-Christians, Abercrombie critiques both theromanticist tendency to regard Andean culture as still separate fromand resistant to European influences, and the melodramatic view thatall indigenous practices have been obliterated by colonial and nationalelites. He challenges prejudices that, from colonial days to thepresent, have seen Andean historical knowledge only in mythicnarratives or narratives of personal experience. Bringing anethnographers approach to historiography, he shows how complex Andeanrituals that hybridize European and indigenous traditionssuch aslibation dedications and llama sacrifices held on saints dayfestivalsare in fact potent evidence of social memory in the community. A groundbreaking and important contribution to Andean anthropology andhistory. Among Abercrombies aims is bridging the gap between writingand non-writing peoples by confronting history with ethnohistory, andconfronting written ethnohistory with the oral traditions and ritualpractices through which Kultas themselves remember their past.FlorenciaE. Mallon, University of WisconsinMadisonA major theoretical,ethnographic, and historical contribution to Andean studies. It couldwell become a classic.Paul Gelles, University ofCaliforniaRiverside

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Customer Reviews (2)

Fantastic research, albeit somewhat unorthodox, by author's own admission. Very interesting views of Aymara daily / ritual life.
I am grateful for the 'fully embedded' approach the author took in giving us this journalistic view of the Aymara people.A U.S. citizen, I lived in Bolivia for the nine years prior to the authors work--his fieldwork beginning in nineteen seventy-nine.

The book is systematically divided into three categories.The first is the author's narrative as he first approach the Aymara peoples.This section glosses over the details and instead lets us come to know the author, his expressed motives, and the technical, and sometimes physical hurtles, he encountered as he began the process of embedding himself.

The second section is a detailed account of the whole of the written histories as viewed from the colonialist and Catholic Church records.These go back as early as the sixteenth century and help to paint one aspect of the memory of the Aymara.

The third section uncovers the clandestine rituals and public and private festivals and their importance in serving as mnemonic methods of recalling oral tradition--Aymara versions of "what really happened" and their relation through timespace to pacha (universe).

This book has given me welcomed insight needed to fill in the blanks in my own comprehension of the rituals and customs that surrounded me as a young boy.His work is meticulously documented, and his helpful glossary of Aymara terms rounds out the great research.The book paints a very beautiful but sometimes unsettling picture of the Aymara culture.

Excellent read on indigenous world-views
Two important elements of social "habit memory" processes strike me in Pathways of Memory and Power.The first is the apparent ease with which the colonial power asserted its program for "social amnesia" through a physical restructuring of social space (rectilinear, functional living spatial constructions) and time (the marking of Church calendrical and daily time, basically obliterating indigenous conceptions of time).The second is the reinterpretation of public and private to suit a colonial "moral code" based on the ritual performances of excessive drinking and bloodletting.These systematic, institutionalized policies effectively dismantled the indians' social habit-memories-replacing them with new ones modeled on Castilian life.

The long-standing issue of religious syncretism is (thankfully) questioned, through an understanding of how the indigenous people create distinctions between the "more Christian" and "more Andean" aspects of their deities and religions.The quipu system of knotting preserves a physical remembering which was transformed, but not destroyed, by Christianity. As Abercrombie states, "the techniques may have remained the same, but the content, the memories, were changing" (p. 260).The "imagenes de bulto," which were introduced by colonial priests, replaced the indigenous idols with Catholic saints, and initiated a long process of revisionist iconography for the indians from one source to another.The llama, as an animal that closely (to the indians) resembled humans in their social interactions, acted as a replacement for the human sacrificial victim; this helped ease the sacrificial rituals into a more acceptable Christian realm of possibilities.The origin myth, with its "multiple, not unique" origins was contentious; although re-reading and appropriating the Christ-like image of Tunupa, and the "great flood" and "tower of Babel" stories, led to a deeper understanding by colonial powers in the religion of their subjugated workers.

The historical grounding in colonial documents led to a deeper, richer, fuller picture of present-day ethnography.I think this method serves to illuminate so many elements in everyday life that seem otherwise "meaningless" or where pre-literate peoples have not developed a "linear" sense of history, as their colonizers encouraged.The ability to recreate, from historical documents, a more complete view of indigenous concepts about space, time, self, and history, is invaluable.It strikes me as a process of reading "through" (not between) the lines of the colonial texts-into the minds of the colonizers-in a way that is instructive in both the development of colonial systems for creation of dominant ideologies, and how the indigenous people actual recreated their colonizers through an adaptation of their habit-memories into a new (world) context. ... Read more