The Ancients - Ancient Americas: the South American Stonehenge

Episode Date: August 28, 2022

One of the largest archaeological sites in South America, located near Lake Titicaca in Western Bolivia - Tiwanaku is a brilliantly mysterious place. Believed to have been founded around 200BC, Tiwanaku is filled with monumental structures, mighty monoliths and incredible ceramics - but who built it? And why?In the final episode of our Ancient Americas series, Tristan is joined by Dr Alexei Vranich to help shine a light on this spectacular site. With 20 tonne stones carried from miles away, across mountains and lakes - Tiwanaku is a site shrouded in mystery. Together Tristan and Alexei discuss this South American Stonehenge and try to understand how some simple reed rafts helped build this magnificent site.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, well, August is coming to an end, and so too is our small series all about the ancient Americas.

You can rest assured we'll be doing more episodes in the future. But this is it for the small mini-series, at least for August time. But we're finishing on a banger, on a really good one. We're going to Bolivia, to a site that has been labelled the South American Stonehenge. A site very high up near Lake Titicaca called Tiwanaku. Now to explain all about Tiwanaku, this place with these huge ancient stone buildings and what we think this site was in its prime, join me to explain all of that. I was delighted to get on the podcast Dr Alexei Vranic. Alexei, he is an archaeologist, he's a wonderful speaker. He dialed in from Poland for this chat today, all about Tiwanaku. He's done a lot of research around this site,

particularly focusing on how these people were able to transport huge stones to the site of Tiwanaku from very far away. How far? Well, Alexei explains in this podcast episode, and I really do hope you enjoy. So without further ado, to wrap up our Ancient Americas miniseries, to talk all about Tiwanaku, here's Alexei. Alexei, good to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for inviting me on. You're more than welcome to Anarku. This is looking forward to this podcast episode immensely.

At its height, this was one of the great cities in the ancient Andes. At its height, it was something special. That's for sure. Now, what it was, that's a hard one to determine. Archaeologists will argue back and forth. Was it a densely populated city? Was it a city that became large during festivals and then smaller at other times? We'll continue debating that for a while.

But one thing for certain is that the monuments are spectacular. It had a tremendous influence at its height. It definitely had an impact on later cultures too. So we're talking about a very important place, that's for sure. Life and legacy. We'll get onto that legacy absolutely a bit later on, but let's set the scene. Whereabouts are we talking with Tiwanaku? Oh man, we are, start us off at close to 4,000 meters above sea level. That's for starters. And when it comes to doing archaeological work there, we go in the wintertime because it's dry.

So just to put how cold and high up we are. So we're at 4,000 meters above sea level. We're about 10 kilometers away from the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. And we're surrounded by mountains. So we've got snow-capped mountains all around us. We're at the top of the world in the modern Republic of Bolivia. And top of the world. And Lake Titicaca, make sure I say that right, was this also, this feels like alongside Mesopotamian places like that.

I've seen this mentioned by you in one of your papers, was this one of the cradles of civilization almost? Absolutely. This is one of those rare places in the world, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, where civilization just sort of arose where there wasn't anything before. So there were small hunter gatherers, then they sort of collected in small little areas with temples, perhaps periodically there were herders, farmers, fishermen, and then for some reason they decide to start building these huge monuments after having these small little centers and create what looks like the the start of civilization. So while other places have its river valley that that was essential for their growth of civilization,

we're up at Titicaca, and I think the lake was our geological formation, or one of the factors that allowed civilization just to be born here out of nothing. Fair enough indeed. I mean, it is such an incredible landscape, which we'll delve into more when we get further into this podcast, particularly talking about stone sources. But you mentioned doing archaeological work at Tiwanaku. It seems that there's still quite a lot of mystery surrounding it. But is it the case that in more recent history we are starting to learn more, thanks to more archaeological work at the site,

we are starting to learn a bit more about this ancient site? Oh, absolutely. When people say, you know, how much of the site has been excavated? You're like, oh, it's two to 3% that's been excavated. But you know, it's a very important two to 3% that's going on. And we've been able to make some incredible advances

with smaller and smaller excavations. And one of the recent things that have come out, and which is crucial when we start discussing any civilization, is when did this happen smaller and smaller excavations. And one of the recent things that have come out, and which is crucial when we start discussing any civilization, is when did this happen, for how long, and how long did each little episode last? And with carbon dating and the new models when it comes to using how you use these carbon dates,

we've been able to get ourselves a good grip on when this place started, what transformations happened, and whenabouts did it end. So we're advancing. Now we have lots and lots of questions, and we'll always have more questions, but we are making some advances, that's for sure. Well let's talk about the start then. When do we think, it's a big question, but when do we think Tiwanaku starts coming about? What do we know about this settlement's earlier history, the origins of Tiwanaku? Yeah, the origins of Tiwanaku. Well, one of the worst places to study the origins of Tiwanaku is Tiwanaku,

because, you know, as this happens all over the world, the later aspects of the site destroys the previous aspects, or they modify it and so on. So, you know, maybe around the first century AD, we have a small little sunken temple, a little courtyard that's sunken into the ground, and we have some settlements around it, some houses, and people are coming in from other areas. Perhaps it's a period where herders come down from the mountains, farmers, they trade, perhaps there's fishermen coming in from other areas. Perhaps it's a period where herders come down from the mountains, farmers, they trade, perhaps there's fishermen coming in too, and they're observing some really interesting astronomical phenomena that lines up with mountains, and that gives them a reason to

get together. Now, you know, some carbon dates say about the first century AD. Some folks might want to put that a little bit earlier, based on astronomical alignments. But let's leave it at that for the moment. The best hard data when it comes to excavations and carbon dating, first century, we have something substantial, a temple, but small. And in regards to why, this is another big question, but before we're saying astronomical potential purpose, I'm presuming these are just theories at the moment, but could it be that these people decided to create this settlement here, of all places, because of that, those mountains in the distance, because of a potential astronomical reason?

Or might there be other reasons behind that too? Yeah, there's, you know what, it's going to be a lot of different reasons. Another colleague talks about demographic movements, and that's, of course, is going to be important. And one facet, I'll tell you, one facet relates to astronomy and the sacred landscape. Just to start off, I mean, this is a question everyone's had. When the first Spanish came by and got there, looked at it, and in addition to, wow, these stones are huge. The thing is, why is this place located here? It is cold, it is high up, it is equidistant from anything of value. There are no quarries, there's no river, there's nothing that you would suspect a city would be

there because they're taking advantage of X, some type of resource, or some type of trade pattern like anywhere else in the world. So this has been a huge question. Now I'll give you one facet of perhaps why this site, with its small little court, beat out all the other small little sites around the basin, because there's probably like a thousand little settlements like this around the Titicaca Basin with its sunken court. But it's the idea of, I guess, marketing when it comes down to it. We can all celebrate things like, think of New Year's Eve. It's time. You know, we don't need to go anywhere in particular to celebrate. It's simply going to happen and everyone has to compete over where

do you go about celebrating this moment they're all going to go through. Do you go to Times Square? Do you go to Piccadilly? Do you go to this club? Do you go to that club? Everyone's competing over who's going to get these people and, of course, all their resources when they come. In the case of Titicaca and the site of Tiwanaku, some wonderful astronomical work done by another colleague with me showed that it was just located

in the perfect place when it came to looking at the southern pole and when it came to looking at the solstice. And it's not only... now you can observe these anywhere else, but there's only one place which is about a kilometer square at the maximum in the valley, where you can observe the southern pole over one sacred mountain in the south and the solstice over another sacred mountain towards the west. And this gave it perhaps that little edge when people go, it's like, where are we going to celebrate the sacred landscape? They go, that place is more powerful than other ones. Maybe that was the bit that actually the tipping point that

got it going towards its larger form we've gone to that larger form very very quickly but slight tangent from me i've just come back from orkney and it's so interesting to look at sites up there which are aligned with the winter solstice mace how or whatever stonehenge too once again you get sense that astronomical sense to it too it's so interesting how again at tiranaki you have that potential purpose here too especially as we're going to get into those great stone structures in a second but i'm presuming it's just a wonderful thing to kind of have a look at alexis isn't it over various different continents from our distant past how you see these people you know establishing centers and creating monuments at places which

seem to have this alignment with these natural phenomenon which occurs every year yeah no alignments are important and one thing that is important to say it's like oh they set this up so they could have a calendar and know when to plant and so on. Listen, the last thing a farmer, either in the northern Scotland or the Highlands or Bolivia, they do not need to move a multi-ton stone to know when it's time to plant. You know, they have enough things going on. Realize that this is theater. You know, these are important events, and anyone who lives on the planet will know about these cycles, and they're important. What happens at Stonehenge, Tiwanaku, and other places, it becomes part of political, religious theater,

and it brings people together for a festival, and for three, four days a year, the rest of the time you're dealing with potatoes, for three, four days a year or more, you get to go and have this astounding festival and you have this alignment and just look at people in manhattan all lining up for manhattan henge as the sun sets along the avenues nobody is adjusting their clock or thinking okay now it's time for me to plant my garden. It's just something spectacular to observe with a large community. So just keep that in mind when people talk about it. It's not science, it's theatre. Theatre and that word community, it's so powerful for this. And well, let's then move on because

we've kind of hinted at it already. But as Tiwanaku's story goes on, let's say after 500 AD, roughly thereabouts, is this when we really start to see Tiwanaku grow and reach its zenith? Maybe a little bit earlier. There's a temple called the Kala Sasaya, and that's where everyone goes now for the solstice to observe the sun not quite come up through the gateway. We can talk about that later. But there's that building.

That's substantial. That's a pretty big building. And at this point, Tiwanaku is still regionally small, but they're dragging huge stones. So let's give some credit to some folks before that happens. About 550, 600 or so, they start building something else, which is called the Pumapunko Temple. And this is what drives ancient alien folks just mad. You type in Puma Punko temple and this is what drives ancient alien folks just mad you type in Puma Punko and the first 10,000 hits on Google relates to ancient technologies and lasers and so on and you know I get one email or more a month from from people asking me or wanting to do

interviews or so on about alien technology. So they start to make this temple with incredibly precise geometric stones. And that lasts for about maybe 40, 50 years. Then they stop, decide not to make it. And then all of a sudden start really building some large buildings with big facades using reused stone. They cannibalized their city. So the answer, yes, 500, they start to move up. 600, they take it a little bit later. They take a turn and said, we're going to make some huge buildings and let's grab any stone we can,

almost Tower of Babel-like scenario, start building it. And then Tiwanaku artifacts and some of its imagery starts spreading out through different parts of the southern andes and it is such an incredible i mean i've never been but just looking at some of the images on google images i'm presuming actually being there it's even more incredible to see today but as you say this is just the skills the abilities of these people who were at tuanarca

at this time you know to try and debunk all those ideas saying it was aliens or something like that this is just what these people were doing they were bringing in this stone and they were creating these massive monumental structures absolutely it's all can be done with ancient technologies now is it incredible oh absolutely is some of the stonework amazing and just you don't see it really before or after yeah they hit something where they were using this relationship between geometry, precise masonry, and religion to create some extraordinary stones. But it's all achievable with the local products. And there's been enough experimental archaeology and things to show how it can go about doing this. So it's not impossible. Is it difficult? Oh, yeah.

Do you need a lot of time? These people had nothing but time and labor. So you throw enough time and labor at something, you can make something pretty amazing. Absolutely. Well, let's delve into some of these examples of monumental architecture now. You mentioned earlier the gateway. So what is this gateway? The gateway. Well, everyone goes to Tiwanaku. By the time you get there, you've been already presented with images of the gateway of the sun. And it's a large single stone with a crack down the middle. You know, I'm from Philadelphia and we have our Liberty Bell with our crack also down the middle. So it's a similar style pilgrimage. Everyone goes to go look at it, and their first reaction is,

that's a lot smaller than I thought it was. And this happens. This happens when an object reaches iconic proportions. It just becomes larger than it actually is. So you get there, you're like, well, what is this? It's actually quite amazing. I mean, you can look at it from the point of view of technology. It's like a 10, 11-ton stone.

I forgot. And they carved this absolutely beautiful gateway with its right internal angles, planar surfaces, some great iconography. And because the way it broke with the most important iconography face down, it survived all the later religious zealots that came by during the colonial periods to erase anything of the previous religion. So when it was finally put back up into a standing position, it's probably the only complete calendar in stone, or at least that elaborate that we have, and it is a very important and a pretty beautiful

piece of stone that was brought from the other side of the lake dragged over and treated with a tremendous amount of care. Now the thing about it that was one gateway of one building that had somewhere between either five or fourteen different gateways. So we're looking at one bit of survive from something that we probably can't even imagine how incredible it was. No, I mean, absolutely. It's interesting to highlight that, you know, there's only one that survived. And once you're through the gateway, therefore into Tirunelka itself, talk to me about the Acapana Pyramid, because this is the other name that seems to be right high on people's minds. Well, actually, you know what? You tell people, it's like, meet me over by the Acapana, and they'll be like, what is that? Fair enough.

That monument over there, they go, that hill? Yeah, that's the Acapana. And it looks like a big eroding hill from most sides of it. And that's because it was faced with stone. But, you know, during the colonial period, they made churches, buildings, even up to the railroad went through there in the early 20th century. So they took stone off this giant heap of dirt, what they considered. So it's been reduced to something much smaller. So you have to imagine what it would have been like when it was faced with stone. There's two things you have to imagine what it would have been like when it was faced with stone. There's two things you have to imagine. One, it was faced with stone. The second thing is they never finished it. You know, it's like all good monuments in the ancient world. And I imagine

you've run across this with other people. There's big monuments, big ideas, and they start and there's a lot of effort. And then it sort of petters out after a bit and they sort of try to finish it up on one side and that's the way sort of how some of these societies work so this is this giant platform 17 meters tall seven different platforms going up and when you get to the top it has this giant hole on top and you're like, oh wow, it was empty in the middle. There was a sunken court. No! Giant looters pit. That was a Basque miner came by there, maybe 16, 1700s, thought, hey there might be gold in here, emptied it out, found nothing. But the result was he threw all the dirt on one side of the Acapana and that meant that all those stones survived and weren't looted out. So it's an impressive building once you understand that you're actually walking on a building.

And then when you get a little bit closer, you realize every single one of these stones was ripped out from another building. So whatever was there at Tiwanaku before got consumed to make this version of Tiwanaku. Remember when I asked, when I told you, it's like, what was the origins of Tiwanaku? It's like, well, Tiwanaku is the worst place to know. That's because they ended up consuming themselves, perhaps even periodically. Similar to Rome, the later Christian period, taking down the imperial Roman pagan monuments, Tiwanaku went through some cycles where they said, well, that building is no longer useful. Let's tear it down and make something else. So they were consuming themselves.

And is this where also the limited nature of stone in the vicinity of Tiwanaku is almost the archaeologist's worst nightmare, as you say, therefore, because going back to these people, as you were saying, they would be reusing older monuments rather than going and getting new stone from distant sources. Yes, yes. The sources are distant. We have the sandstone, and that's maybe 10 kilometers away. And these are huge multi-ton stones down to little paving stones. So you either have to bring it from more than 10 kilometers away,

or if you want the nice andesite stone like from the gateway the sun you have to go 10 kilometers to the shore and then cross part of the lake then go to this extinct volcano find that stone and drag it over so that logistically that's a lot of steps you reduce the logistics dramatically if you don't have to do that and you just say why don't we just use that building you know it's we don't like it that much or maybe it fell out of favor let's tear that down and build that up over here so a lot of times in civilizations they go oh when they're consuming themselves like ancient rome they're in decline well it looks like tionako they were actually in in a rising position but instead of dragging in more

stone, they just simply turned their stones around as they had at the site. It's a very efficient way of quickly making new monuments. And so keeping on the pyramid a little bit longer, do we have any idea what this pyramid was used for? First of all, let's go with the term platform. Every ancient civilization needs a pyramid, and people have called this a pyramid. Actually on top it's a very large flat space that would have accommodated a lot of people. Now what was it used for? God, we, you know, this is where archaeology is coming up. Not a bit short, we just don't have all the information, and we do have a

certain period, but that's later on what they're using it for. Initially, what was it used for? You know, we just don't know. There's ceremonies, there's festivals going on. But one of the interesting things that if you stand inside the semi-subterranean temple, the first monument at Tiwanaku that was made to align with a sacred mountain in the distance and then that sacred mountain was located below the southern pole and that was a very powerful alignment because the entire world rotated around the southern pole rotated around that monument and you could stand in the temple and watch it now when they built Acapana it's tall enough to block out the view of that mountain in the distance. So now when you sat in the semi-subterranean temple, you saw the southern pole rotate above the Acapana itself.

So in a way, through the use of force perception, they brought the center of the world to the site and put it directly over their largest monument. You can think that's a lot of effort to do that. I go, it is. But it's a hell of a statement to make too. All this month on Gone Medieval from History Hit, I'll be asking, who really were the Vikings? How did they become so successful in spreading across Northern Europe and beyond from the late 8th to the 11th centuries? What are the stories we tell about them? And what legacy do they leave behind for us today? I'm Dr Kat Jarman, and throughout September,

I'll be examining the big questions about the Vikings with a host of experts and answering all of your burning questions about the Viking Age as well. So, for everything you always wanted to know about the Vikings, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, absolutely, quite a statement indeed. And, well, I'm going to hesitate a bit longer before talking more about that,

because I'd like to quickly ask, we talked about monumental architecture, but in regards elsewhere into Inarku do we have any idea about less monumental buildings let's say like residential buildings or something like that have we got any clue into that side of to Inarku story fortunately we've had some some very wonderful colleagues do the non-monumental aspect and that is difficult archaeology. So hats off to them. And they've gone through things that, God, it's even harder to find. They look residential. They're residential, but also they have a lot of space when it comes to hosting people. So it's a good place to have. You live, but it's a nice big patio. You've got your kitchen area. So when all

your relatives or your ethnic group from wherever you're from comes by, they have a great place to party. So there's a lot of evidence of that. One of the studies by one of the colleagues, they found there was a lot of skeletons or pieces of skeletons at the base of the Acapana, and these guys were sort of cut up and crunched up and sort of tossed there. So you have that, and they're like, okay, they're doing that. But what she found when she looked at the skeletons inside one of these residential areas, they had a lot of cut marks, but they were different, and they weren't broken up, and it looks like they were defleshing them, which meant they were taking some sacred ancestor after they'd been dried out, scraping off the dried off flesh perhaps, putting them

into some bundle and preserving them. So they would be placed in a sort of a very visible place within the house and you would continue to honor your ancestors. So you could still have them around. And that seems part of the basis of Tiwanaku and a lot of Andean cultures was their association with ancestors. So that was wonderful work done just by looking at the cut marks on bones. Yeah, I mean, that's such an interesting aspect as well. When you see that, unlike in ancient cultures across the world, where they have their ancestors buried sometimes under their feet. As you say, that importance of the ancestors. And I feel it's really important to highlight that alongside the monumental architecture.

I mean, do we also see alongside this worship of the ancestors and i feel it's really important to highlight that alongside the monumental architecture i mean do we also see alongside this worship of the ancestors do we also see in these houses or nearby these houses statues honoring certain figures what do we know about statues at tuinaku too wow the well the the monoliths that was a tremendous topic and obsession of my late friend John Janicek. We would spend every week discussing monoliths and Tiwanaku and their role and where were they located. And there was giant monoliths. Actually, the largest monolith in South America is located at the site. And this was even seen by the first Spanish still standing there. And they would wonder about this one. But even another one of my then students, Wes Maddox, he excavated some little, we don't know what it was, maybe a tiny temple, but inside it had a

miniature sunken court and it had a miniature monolith. So the Tiwanaku would take the sacred concept of the monolith and reduce it down in size so they could still worship that. So these monoliths are found, they're mostly found now in public context. I could only imagine that in residential context you had your sacred ancestors and you had several other sacred objects including small monoliths, that's for sure. So we've kind of tingled around it for some time now but let's delve into this now. Getting these monoliths to Tiwanaku from faraway sources, how do we think they did this? Wow getting the monoliths and let's go let's go the monolithic stones because not only are there big monoliths but there's huge multi-ton stones that were there and that's something that people have always up until

the present from the first moment go where do these stones come from and how do they get them there some people can solve it very quickly aliens and then we're done but we are going to take a different approach here and other work has been done to source the stone. So we know it's like, okay, this is coming from the south if it's sandstone, and then there's several different types of quarries when it comes to igneous rocks from the extinct volcano of Copia,

which is on the other side of the small part of the lake. So those are the two sources of stone. Now, how do they get them there? Well, you can look at some of the the stones and there's drag marks on them. So there that's a lot of folks dragging perhaps along a prepared road we don't quite know. People have come up with a lot of strange different ideas on how to do it but at the moment we know that they had ropes and they had a lot of people to go about dragging these things. so we're talking about

brute effort but in regards to so dragging then up to to anarku but what about the source of stone which were the other side of lake titicaca how would they have therefore got the stones before getting it to the to anarku side how do we think they got it across the lake that's a question that i asked many years ago and it ended ended up becoming almost randomly a very interesting experiment. When someone that did documentary film asked me, do you have any like cooler, interesting ideas to do this after a conference presentation? I was like, oh, sure. Because, you know, as archaeologists, we think it's like, what's really cool about archaeology and who made archaeology cool and exciting on one level? Well, Thor Heyerdahl did when it comes to his contiki. Give him a lot of credit for being wrong, but in a really interesting and fun way, which is the best way to be remembered.

So parts of his theory didn't work, but what a guy. And when this person asked me, it's like, what do you have? It's like, well, we have Lake Titicaca. And, you know, here we are. We have the andesite stone on one side, and then the ruins are, you know, on another side. And they have to cross this water. And there's really no trees around. And we're already struggling against, you know, fringe theorists going, how do they get these stones moved around? How about an experimental project where we use the traditional lake technology of watercraft to tour a reeds and see if we can move a multi-ton stone from one side to another. To my surprise, a few weeks later, they called and they said, great idea, let's do it, we have the money, you're going to build a boat and so on. And I was like, oh, damn, this was sort of just a cool idea. Now I actually have to build the boat.

This was sort of just a cool idea. Now I actually have to build the boat. So this was part of the Lake Titicaca experimental project where we got together with some of the Aymara boat builders and told them we want to move a 10-ton stone the size of one of the famous monoliths from one side of the lake to the other. Can you make a reed boat that could handle that? And it took about three months of an extended

family putting it together, some additional work on it, and of course us trying to sail this thing. But once we did it, we found that it was quite possible to do that. You could drop a 10-ton stone. We could have dropped a 20-ton stone on this boat, which was about 40 feet long, 12 feet across by the end, weighed 12 tons of reeds. And you can bring it from one side to another, no problem, actually. We thought it would be a lot more death-defying and daring. But once you got the method down, you could have brought stones back and forth using this reed boat technology. It was quite feasible, that's for sure. I mean, I love that. So, Alexei, this was a great

example of, as you say, experimental archaeology, trying to get a sense of how these stones were brought to a place like Tirunaku, and you can get involved in the process too. So, as you say, it just makes archaeology in that sense, I think, at least my belief, even more fun, you know, even more hands-on. Oh, absolutely. It's experiential, it's experimental. I enjoy lecturing, both in class and in public, and people love to hear this. As opposed to, you know, part of this is backed up by science. I have some colleagues that have done some very serious work when it comes to chemical analysis of stone, how it got there, and I'm like, alright, let's give this one a shot.

You know, let's see, can we actually do this? Because during this entire process, we said, we're going to move the stone this way, let's give this one a shot you know let's see can we actually do this because during this entire process we said we're going to move the stone this way let's create a ramp let's put wood and then immediately the stone just smashed everything we're like okay that doesn't work you know take that idea out like let's use this it's like okay that doesn't work either so you start eliminating ways that it couldn't have been done and then you demonstrate well this is the possibility of how it could be done and then you look at the implications and the ramifications of that. The other aspect of the project was that I was working

with the Aymara Indians. We were all part of the project. They are a living culture that hold this landscape sacred and dear to themselves. So I got to learn a lot about indigenous concepts as we were doing this work. It just wasn't work. And I tell the story one day when we just couldn't move the rock any further. We're just trying and my hands are just torn up. I'm like, I can't do this. I'm going to go have a beer. This is never going to happen. We need to finish by the time of this filming and I can't move this stone.

I have a beer. I come back and all the Aymara guys are, who are just incredibly hardworking folks, but they're just sitting around, not doing anything. And I look at the stone and it has a little bottle of alcohol on top of it and a cigarette and a crack that's lit. And I'm like, guys, what are you doing? They're like, what? It's like, he's taking a rest. We've given him a cigarette and some alcohol. He doesn't want to go any further.

We're like, okay. And this is this whole idea of this animate landscape where everything is alive. idea of this animate landscape where everything is alive. And in fact, there's a lot of these large stones that are in between Tiwanaku and this place that are just there in the field. And people call them piedras cansadas, tired stones. So this was a place where the stone just got tired and didn't want to go any further. In this case, the stone didn't want to go any further. So they're like, okay, like, you know how you have a friend who doesn't want to leave a party? You give him another beer, a cigarette, and you slowly push him towards the door. That's what we're doing.

So I'm like, OK. So we sat there, waited for the stone to finish his cigarette. They gave it some alcohol. They consulted it. They put some coca leaves. Like, OK, stone's ready to move. And they started. And by tomorrow tomorrow with additional people

helping we got the stone back on but that was a beautiful and just a privileged opportunity to to look into a different different way of looking at the world i mean i like that and i mean you mentioned how of course lots of local people helping with that you know getting them involved which is is so great to hear but does do you think this also emphasizes how you know as it was today when you're doing that experimental archaeology how it perhaps was back you know thousands of years ago how the moving of the stone the getting the stone to somewhere else was perhaps as more as if not more important than the stone's final purpose at the site itself we see similar cases

for instance in Orkney with the ring of Brodgar standing stones where people argue that the process the communal value with the people working together to get the stone to the final destination was more important than its potential final purpose do you think it could be a similar case that we have at Tiwanaku is that whole process of getting the stone to a place like Tiwanaku. Oh, absolutely. No, you absolutely nailed when people ask me, like, what was Tiwanaku? Was it a city? Was it finished? I go, it wasn't finished. And Tiwanaku was a process, not even a city. The worst thing that could possibly happen to a place like Tiwanaku is that there's no more work to do. So each and every one of these monuments is unfinished on some level or another. So you had to continue. You would arrive at Tiwanaku and you would add to it and

you'd continue adding and we have evidence of stones being moved this that and then in the fill you have all these containers of essentially beer glasses. So there were work festivals associated with it. So part of Tiwanaku existing and part of your adoration for this place is doing the ceremonies, but also contributing work and having this move forward. And then creating a part of your identity, leaving it there through effort. So Tiwanaku was continuously in process, and it was going on. And when you have a situation like this, and one thing that I saw working with the Aymara, that when we had a lot of people and we had the stone, and then all of a sudden musicians showed up.

I don't know where they came from. So they're playing their pan pipes, and they have their drums. And then people bringing their potatoes from their field. I, of course, have to go buy beer. So we move the stone and then it becomes fun. It actually becomes fun and people get together and they party. There's music. It's a break from the rest of the world. So you can look at these monuments and go, oh my God, they must have forced people to do this or so on. Or you can see this is a great way to spend the off season of agriculture doing something. And personally, you ask me, it's like, do you want to sit at home in your small little village where you know everybody from the moment you were born? Or do you want to go move a rock for a month

and then afterwards there's a ferocious four-day party and you get to meet people that aren't related to you i'm like i'm moving that stone you know this serves a serious purpose so tionako needed to continuously be in process and from what we saw with the akapan and the pumapunko probably reinvent itself every once in a while too. It's so interesting. So it's been so wonderful to talk all about this, to talk about the site like that, you know, those important values.

What therefore do we think ultimately happens to Tiwanaku? It feels like another great big question, but when do we think this site, people stop adding to it and, you know, it starts to decrease? Yeah, when Tiwanaku ends. Now, that's going to be a question for, well, almost any civilization, especially a preliterate one where we don't have it. And, of course, then we have the sort of the history of how civilizations end.

So everybody wants their civilization to blossom and be wonderful. And if you're an archaeologist, you want the end to be horribly destructive, bloody, and sudden, because that leaves a lot of great remains. And it's also an appealing story that this place collapsed because of invasion. Or when you look at the reasons why people think it collapsed, it generally follows present-day concerns that we have. So we're always looking for lessons from our present and future by projecting onto the past. So, you know, was it an environmental disaster that took out Tiwanaku?

Was it disease, an invasion? And all that relates to often what we're thinking or we're worried about nowadays. Now, we've done a lot more work with a large team of people looking at carbon dates, osteological remains, going through all the old excavations. Something happens at Tiwanaku and for several hundred years everyone's keeping the place clean. They're swept up and so on, you know, you do your ceremonies, and all of a sudden about 900 they stop sweeping, and dirt sort of accumulates, and dirt accumulates, continues, and then at the base of some of these monuments, which before were clean, people start leaving

offerings. Offerings of yamas, of chunks of people, or people themselves, perhaps there were sacrifices, perhaps there was sacrifice, perhaps it was a beloved ancestor being brought in. And for the next 50 years, as Tiwanaku sort of becomes slightly covered in dirt from the wind and so on, people are leaving offerings and then it stops. And all of the main monuments, the gateway, the sun, all the monoliths, none of them are damaged. They just sort of stand there. And to me, I look at Tiwanaku sort of like a pre-Columbian version of Friendster or MySpace. It was a big social location and everyone went to it. And then people sort of lost interest for some reason or another. And, you know, they didn't revolt, burn it down, get angry, attack. They just simply stopped

paying attention to it. And as we talked about before, Tiwanaku being a process, you need labor, you need people. If people lose interest, you have less labor to reinvent things, well even keep things clean. And then it went from a place where people would gather to perhaps where people would come out of memory, go, oh, there's a sacred place there, and leave something. And then eventually it just becomes one more sacred spot on the landscape. So it looks like folks lost interest over, you can say, it looks like over a hundred year period. How interesting. And almost as if those monuments stay there for Inca and then European peoples to arrive and wander out in the following centuries.

That's right. The Inca arrive a few centuries later. And, you know, the Inca were always like, you know, we're the firstborn, like any civilization. The gods created us first. We're going out conquering all these barbarians and doing them the favor of bringing them civilization. So they get to Tiwanaku. They're like, oh, damn, this is older than us. And then like any good centralized dictatorship government, they just change their story. Like, well, this is where we were first born. And then we went underground and then got to Cusco. So with that, they had to move around the monuments, the stones, refurbish things to make this into their story. So the ruins had to match their narrative.

And it became sort of like the first theme park of South America. It's like, we're the firstborn and here's the evidence. Come here. And it's like, you know how we told you how there was people before us and they were bad and the god got mad and he made them into stone well look there they are the monoliths those were the people you know so it became a liability well it went from a liability to evidence so they brought it into their own little narrative made their settlement and so on the spanish arrive of course they're not interested in that they look look for gold or anything else.

They didn't find much. Priests came by at different times and knocked over monoliths or chipped away things, put crosses. A lot of these monoliths were too big. So they just, they dug a hole and dropped them into it. And then it became, you know, this ruin that anyone who was curious, as one chronicler said, would stop by and take a look at it. that anyone who was curious, as one chronicler said, would stop by and take a look at it. Fair enough. I wish I could ask more, but we've got to start wrapping up now. But Tirunaku, 40-minute chat, it's been great, Alexei, you shining so much more light on this, but it also sounds, from what you've been saying, that there's still so much more to learn about this ancient settlement and the people who constructed it? Absolutely. Listen, something keeps archaeologists spending their summer times

4,000 meters above sea level in the winter in highland Bolivia. It's difficult living, but it's so interesting, the archaeology. And that's what brings us back. So there's a lot more work to be done. A lot more will be found in the future. And as an archaeologist, I have some great ideas. I got some publications. And all of it's going with, eventually, I'm probably going to be wrong on most of this, because new investigations are going to come out and either overturn some

of my ideas or just add so much to it that my thoughts are not even recognized before. So I'm being respectful for those that became before me. And I'm being humble a bit right now, knowing that the field is going to continue and there'll be some younger graduate students that are going to use me as their straw man and prove me wrong. And I wish them luck because we need a lot more work. Absolutely brilliant. I mean, last question, I guess, though, because it might be in the title of this episode. Is it fair to call Tirunelku South America's Stonehenge? I see that being said on the internet quite a bit. Do you think that's a fair comparison?

Oh, it's much larger, a little bit more complex. But listen, the place is so strange, we have to give it a name that at least we can start to comprehend it. So the saying, you know, the Stonehenge of America, it made more sense before it got reconstructed so heavily and a little bit unfortunately. But if that brings people there to at least have an idea that this is amazing at a point of comparison, yeah, we can go with that. It's not offensive. Brilliant. Well, Alexei, this has been an absolutely brilliant chat. Your documentary on this, it's online. People can go and view it. It's called? Oh, absolutely. Just go on YouTube. It's called Voyage to the American Stonehenge.

And for all you teachers out there, you can go to my webpage, dralexi.com, and you can see the video along with a PowerPoint to to download an assignment so you can have your students make this and i've had students make a boat with straws but anyone else can also take a look at this 50 minute long video a little bit dated now you know things move along quickly but it's online please watch brilliant and we look forward to your book on this coming out in due course it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast this morning. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure to speak about such an interesting place. I appreciate it. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Alexei Vranic explaining all about the site, the Bolivian ancient site of Tiwanaku. It was great to get Alexei on the podcast to talk all about this. Now last things from me, if you want

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