Enduring Monuments

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“A timely and most welcome addition to the literature on Andean monumentalism and the development of complex societies in the ancient Americas and a must-read for all Andeanists.”
—David Chicoine, Louisiana State University

“Anthropology at its best: observant, engaging, and elegant. Not only is Klarich’s ‘building biography’ of the Qalasaya Compound at Pukara a major substantive contribution to Andean archaeology, but this monograph demonstrates how scientific rigor and ethnographic empathy should be combined to produce a deep and nuanced understanding of the continuing and recurring creation of place. In the process, Klarich provides an invaluable synopsis of previous—her own and other scholars’—archaeological investigations at Pukara and the Titicaca Basin and their implications for understanding the prehispanic southern Andes. Enduring Monuments is an important and durable addition to the anthropological archaeology of South America.”
—Jerry D. Moore, author of A Prehistory of South America, Ancient Andean Houses, and Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes

Enduring Monuments traces the architectural histories of monumental complexes and public spaces of the Pukara site in the Lake Titicaca Basin. Using data from three distinct areas—the Qalasaya, the Central Pampa, and the Northern Platform—Elizabeth A. Klarich provides a powerful diachronic and comparative perspective for understanding social and political transformations during the Late Formative period in Peru.

In the early twentieth century, Peruvian scholars Luis E. Valcárcel and Julio C. Tello visited Pukara and shared images of its multicolored pottery and unique stone sculptures with colleagues across the world. A number of both small-scale and multiyear field projects have followed, with goals of refining Lake Titicaca Basin cultural chronologies, tracking Pukara-style material culture in the south-central Andes, restoring the structural integrity of the Qalasaya, and documenting the reoccupations of Pukara by Colla, Inca, and early Spanish colonial populations. Enduring Monuments synthesizes the findings of these diverse projects and shares the results of fieldwork and artifact analysis by the Pukara Archaeological Project since 2000.

Using a “building biography” approach that tracks initial construction, major remodeling, and subsequent expansion efforts during the Middle and Late Formative periods (400 BC–AD 200), Klarich highlights transformations in material culture, settlement patterns, social hierarchy, and daily practices at Pukara and contemporaneous sites across the Titicaca Basin and situates Formative period Pukara within the vast anthropological and archaeological literature addressing monumentality, ritual practice, and incipient urbanism in complex societies in South America and beyond.