<< News >> New finds shed light on prehistoric Andean culture
Submitted by DavidRaven on Saturday, 04 December 2004 Page Views: 12020
DigsCountry: Bolivia Ceramic artifacts found by Finnish archeologists during a dig in Bolivia have shed new light on the prehistoric Tiwanaku people, of whom little is known, reports Helsinki University."The discovery demonstrates that the Tiwanakus made the highest quality ceramics in the Andean region, with very naturalistic portraits, and thanks to this we now know what they looked like," Martti Paerssinen, a professor from Helsinki University who led the excavations, told AFP.
The Tiwanaku people settled on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca in the Andean mountains around 400 BC. They built their administrative centre, the city of Tiwanaku, around 300-500 AD, and their influence in the region continued to grow for several centuries.
Knowledge about the Tiwanakus is however limited as they left no writings and their culture died out in the 11th century.
Today, the Tiwanaku's former capital, some 75 kilometers (45 miles) west of La Paz, is Bolivia's most important archeological site.
The Finnish university has carried out excavations in the area around Lake Titicaca, which is shared between Peru and Bolivia, together with Bolivian archeologists for some 15 years.
During surveys on the island of Pariti in the lake this summer, the team of archeologists found a Tiwanaku burial site containing more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of ceramic artifacts, which have been dated to between 850 and 1050 AD.
"The ceramics also tell a lot about their costumes and jewelry, which we knew little about before since the textiles from this period have almost all disappeared," Paerssinen noted.
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