Talk:Tiwanaku
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left comments of serious issues with this article in the Tiwanaku Talk page yamaplos 03:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC) (edit)
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[edit] Official spelling
Tiwanaku is the official spelling, and Tiahuanaco is the old one. I think Tiwanaku should be the title of the article and Tiahuanaco should be the redirect. Any objections? Gadykozma 12:43, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No objection... Tiwanaku is the way it's generally spelled in the native Aymara and Quechua languages, while Tiahuanaco reflects Spanish spelling. This name pairing is quite common in Bolivia (and, I'd bet, also Peru). Since Tiwanaku is an indigenous site, I think it's only proper to use the indigenous spelling, regardless of whether it's "official" or not. The exception would be the nearby modern villiage of Tiahuanaco, built by the Spanish colonials in large part using stones taken from the ruins of Tiwanaku. If the "old"/Spanish spelling is to be used for anything, it should be used only for the modern villiage, reserving the "new"/Aymara-Quechua spelling for the ancient site. Murple 10:16, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the town name is pretty fluid. I've never called the village anything but Tiwanaku, and no matter what any sign might say, that is what people who live there call the modern village. Really, any Bolivian would know what you mean no matter what you call the place, but Tiwanaku is best in almost any case, including what to call the modern village.
To add to the pro "Tiwanaku" spelling, I've just come across a 1980 book by Hugo Boero Rojo called Discovering Tiwanaku. The book is in English but was printed in Bolivia. Totnesmartin (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Alan Kolata
Need to work in the info about (and from) Alan Kolata, researcher from Chicago who had much to do with unravelling the mystery of Tiwanaku's farming techniques and reintroducing them in the experiments alluded to in the article. Should also mention the theories of trans-oceanic trade by Tiwanaku... and the (flakey, in my opinion) theories linking Tiwanaku to Atlantis myths, simply because they are so widespread. Murple 10:16, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I would personally delete anything that alludes to trans-oceanic trade and Tiwanaku. I'm not the only one that would.
[edit] Bias against alternate theories
Although I don't agree with any theories concerning extraterrestrial influences on ancient civilisations so far, I think that describing it as a "fad" is inappropriate. The term suggests that the followers of these theories are credulous and that the theorists themselves are shallow and/or selective in their research and sources. This may or may not be the case, but as it stands one can construe a bias against the theorists in that part of the article.
Requesting a rephrasal. Astion 13:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
- "fad" is hardly NPOV. OTOH, such theories hardly belong in an encyclopedia except as trivia, and Wikipedia discourages trivia. I suggest the paragraph be removed, or rephrased and other Tiwanaku trivia, such as the Kon Tiki, added, to balance. yamaplos 03:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamaplos (talk • contribs)
[edit] Dating
Info below moved from article for discussion. WBardwin 19:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
- Controversy abounds relating to the above information. Many more recent theories suggest that Tiwanaku (or Tiahuanaco) is actually the oldest city on earth, due to the fact that it is a port city, and yet 2000 feet above sea level. This implies that the city was created either at a point when the nearby Lake Titicaca was at a much higher level (some 9000 years ago) or that it was built at a time when the entire mountain range was at sea level (some 12000+ years ago). In the 1800s an archaeologist named Augustus Le Plongeon visited the area and noted a strata of sea shells in the surrounding bedrock, which would support this theory. There are also carvings of the woolly rhinoceros and a horse on surrounding buildings. Horses were totally unknown in the Americas when the spanish conquistadors arrived, and the Woolly Rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) has been extinct since roughly 20,000 BC! At any rate, Tiwanaku is a huge megalithic city in an entirely inhospitable area now incapable of supporting any large community, and the scientific community is vague at best on the details of when and by whom it was built.--Aatlae 14:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
These "alternative" theories are pure fantasies. Research into the Tiwanaku culture has been very intense in the last 10 to 15 years. There must be a ton of C14 dates from excavations in Tiwanaku itself, as well as in related areas where there were Tiwanaku colonies (i.e. the Osmore drainage). There has been nothing in the academic literature supporting the outlandish chronology. The above removed paragraph, if returned to the entry, should be tagged as the theories of psuedoscientists. What are the citations and evidence of Tiwanakuas a port city? Sea shells in the surrounding BEDROCK does not support the idea that Tiwanaku was built at sea level. SheldonLB
- Yes, these "theories" are just old-earth creationist BS. Bueller 007 16:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
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- There are so many misstatement of facts in the above "info" that any serious archaeologist or geologist would regard it as being alternative fiction of the type written by either Eric von Daniken or Charles Berlitz. The errors and falsehoods to be found in the above paragraph include:
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- 1. Tiwanaku (or Tiahuanaco) is not and never was a "port city". The so-called "docks" and "wharves" are nothing more than natural features which Posnansky misindentified as manmade structures. In addition, there is neither a relict shoreline nor ancient lake level with which these features can be associated.
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- The lake level history of Lake Titicaca is now known in great detail. Between 30,000 to 35,000 BP, ancient Lake Titicaca was at an elevation of 3,825 meters above sea level (asl) or 15 meters (49 feet) **below** Posnansky's "port structures". By 26,000 BP, the level of Lake Titicaca was 3,815 meters asl or 25 meters (82 ft) **below* Posnansky's "port structures". Between 8,500 to 26,000 BP, the level of Lake Titicaca never got above 3,815 meters asl and sometimes dropped below it. After 8,500 BP, the level of lake Titicaca dropped lower than its modern level and later rose back to its current level. Thus, it is impossible for Tiwanaku to have been a port at any time during the last 35,000 years, much less 9,000 years ago.
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- 2 Dr. Augustus Le Plongeon is lost in time by tens of millions of years. The fossil seashells in the surrounding bedrock range in age from 70 to 350 million years. Unless a person wants to argue for a "theory" that Tiwanaku was built at sea level as a port city by either dinosaurs or trilobites, the fossil seashells found in local bedrock are meaningless as evidence for Tiwanaku having been at sea level at one time. The details of the age of these fossil seashells was known as far back as 1949 when Dr. Newell's "Geology of the Lake Titicaca region, Peru and Bolivia" (Geological Society of America, Memoir 36) was published.
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- 3 The carvings of "woolly rhinoceros and a horse on surrounding buildings" exist only in the vivid imaginations of people, who have completely misidentified carvings because they are functionally illiterate in their understanding the of the motifs used by the prehistoric inhabitants of Tiwanaku. For example, one alternative author claims that what is clearly a carving of a parrot is actually a carving of an elephant.
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- 4. The statement "Tiwanaku is a huge megalithic city in an entirely inhospitable area now incapable of supporting any large community..." was completely refuted by Kolata's studies of the raised bed irrigation systems. For some details, go read Raised Bed Irrigation at Tiwanaku, Bolivia and Putting Raised Field Agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin Ancient Agriculture Back to Work. One of many papers about raised bed agriculture is:
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- Kolata, Alan L., and C. R. Ortloff, 1996, Tiwanaku Raised-Field Agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia. In Tiwanaku and Its Hinterland: Archaeology and Paleoecology of an Andean Civilization, edited by Alan L. Kolata, pp. 109-152. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC
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- 5 The statement "… and the scientific community is vague at best on the details of when and by whom it was built" is completely false as demonstrated by the publications listed in Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) Site Bibliography.
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- Also go read:
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- The problem with the above paragraph and many of the alternative theories about the age and origin of Tiwanaku is that they are readily refuted by a simple review of the published literature. Many are based upon misinformation, false claims, antiquated research, and ignorance of the data and interpretations, which have been published in the scientific literature over the last couple of decades.Paul H. (talk) 13:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Interesting points raised. I am just wondering what the C14 dates relate to though. Is it the dating of bones found at the site and/or of 'cultural refuse'? It wouldnt seem unreasonable to suggest that if what user: 'Aatlae' suggests - that Tiwanaku is older than some archeologists hypothesise - that C14 dating of bones or suchlike to AD300 (or whenever) can only be used as evidence that people were there at that time, it can't, logically speaking, preclude the possibility that 'people' (of whatever age or culture) inhabited the site before that. This of course applies to most archeological sites. Besides I think it far more becoming of us as wikiusers to consider other aspects of Tiwanaka instead using the site only as a means of insulting someone elses views and offering up little evidence in support of your insult. I was saddened to see that there are no entries on the article discussing the techniques the creators of tiwanaka used in its construction. Any ideas anyone? How does one cut 100 - 200 tonne stones with such accuracy, including the cut of the rear side of a slab from the rock?!, given the supposed tools of the pre-incas (or even the 15th century spaniards!). ?
Geoff86.130.194.90 15:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I watched the documentary "The Mysterious Origins of Man". In it some archeologist named Neil Steede estimated the city as being 12.000 years old. I don't consider this documentary to be neutral at all, but it shows that there are alternative views. Maybe it's worth mentioning that not all scientist agree with the dating mentioned in the article. The text that was in the article was however written from the point of view that the city is definitely or very likely older than generally accepted. I think it should be rewritten so that its clear that some scientists (a minority) have other estimates for the city's age. /Jiiimbooh 15:52, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
- It's my understanding that the ancient dates mentioned were based on astronomical calculations which specified that if certain structures in the city were designed to mark the solstice, they would have had to have been built 15,000 years ago when the solstice occurred at those points. Assuming his calculations are correct, even a layman like me can see that the "if...designed to mark the solstice" part is a very, very big IF, requiring a great deal of assumptions about the culture of the people who built the city, of which we know very little. This site http://www.csicop.org/sb/9603/origins.html seems to be saying that the theories presented on that show are not very good science. 69.95.236.234 (talk) 16:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
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- Here is what the geologist Paul Heinrich says about this: "A real mystery about the Tiwanaku Site is that Posnansky (1943) clearly knew how badly trashed the Tiwanaku Site was when he mapped it. Yet, he disregarded these obvious problems and tried to date the site using archaeoastronomical methods that he should have known would produce relatively meaningless results. He simplistically assumes without any hard evidence that astronomical alignments were unaltered by the destruction that the Tiwanaku site has suffered. He also assumes without either the benefit of inscriptions or any ethnographic or other data that buildings were astronomically aligned to a high degree precision in specific directions." Doug Weller (talk) 17:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] No mention of any Bolivian researchers
Is it only Americans doing research that deserve being names? according to this article, that is the case. yamaplos 03:18, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
- Clearly not, as Oswaldo Rivera is mentioned and he is a Bolivian. DINAR is mentioned, I've added Escalante's name.--Doug Weller (talk) 05:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Suka Kollu article
The "cultural development" section is merely an exposition of the suka kollu theory. It should go to its own article, or maybe the section have suka kollu as title. yamaplos 03:18, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Religion
This section needs a _serious_ rewrite.
The religion section admits it is 100% hearsay, from sources not necessarily related to the Tiwanaku culture except by interpreting lore of later cultures occupying the same territory. It's like interpreting Canyon de Chely lore from Lone Ranger radio episodes. What we know of Tiwanaku religion comes purely from archaeology. Anything else is speculation. It is highly reasonable to assume that Tiwanaku people did care about some of their dead, built massive structures that might have been temples (or not), and from the specific positioning of pottery shards uncovered at burial sites, apparently performed ceremonies during burial involving breaking a keru. Anything else went through at least 500 years of oral tradition trough the Inca culture before it was recorded by the Spaniard. yamaplos 03:18, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
