The offerings appear to have been made from an island that once existed at the center of the lake.
An underwater excavation of Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca has revealed extensive ritual offerings made by the early elite during the founding stages of the Tiwanaku state—a civilization established around 1,500 years ago that served as a major precursor to the Incan Empire.
Instead of just collecting objects from the surface of the lake’s bottom, the team carried out excavations to see what lay beneath: “That allowed us to sample a series of undisturbed contexts,” Delaere and Capriles told Newsweek, adding that they hoped to find evidence of earlier offerings. That was exactly what they did.
The team says the discovery of ritual offerings dating back to the start of the Tiwanaku civilization suggests religion played a vital role in the formation of the state, and that elites used their wealth to make offerings and thereby exert control over the rest of the population. As the society got bigger and started to adopt agriculture, individuals had to start cooperating and interacting with unknown individuals.
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