Bolivian Altiplano
The Lithic Monad
The high-altitude plateau of the Bolivian Altiplano is an environment that actively repels human life. Sitting more than two and a half miles above sea level, it is a desolate, wind-scoured basin compressed between the eastern and western cordilleras of the Andes mountain range. The air here is thin, holding less than sixty percent of the oxygen available at sea level, and the temperature fluctuates violently between scorching solar radiation by day and bone-chilling sub-zero freezes by night. The soil is hyper-alkaline, dry, and resistant to all but the hardiest tubers and coarse bunchgrasses.
To the modern mind, it is the last place on Earth one would expect to find the birthplace of a highly sophisticated, megalithic civilization. Yet it is precisely here, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, that the ancient complex of Tiwanaku and its sister node, Pumapunku, were engineered.
For generations, orthodox historicism has treated Tiwanaku as a primitive administrative capital—a ceremonial ce…
