The archaeologists have discovered the rarest artefacts at Lake Titicaca, the publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported. The researchers suggest the new discovery will shed light on the history of the Tiwanaku people, who developed in Lake Titicaca between 500 and 1,100 AD.
The recent underwater excavations in the Khoa Reef was conducted using an innovative 3D photogrammetry to map the site, such an approach showed it was the Tiwanaku who first chose this location as a place of worship. According to Jose Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology from the Penn State, the Incas associations often came first when it is about the excavations in Latin America.
‘People often associate the Island of the Sun with the Incas because it was an important pilgrimage location for them and because they left behind numerous ceremonial buildings and offerings on and around this island,’ Mr Capriles explains.
The recent research shows that the Tiwanaku people who lived in Lake Titicaca between 500 and 1,100 AD were the first people to offer items of value to religious deities in the area. There were no Incas associations despite the traditional archaeological and ethical approaches.
For their underwater research, the scientists using a water-dredge, they recovered a slew of Tiwanaku’s bottom offerings. The archaeologists have discovered the ceramic incense burners modelled after pumas, sacrificed juvenile llamas, and traditional ornaments.
Marine archaeology is an extreme perspective niche, say the scientists. being equipped with the innovative technical solution and 3D photogrammers, the researchers are able to find much more interesting and unique things from the past. This time, marine researchers decided to explore the Khoa reef after amateur divers found a number of ancient items at the site. The reef is submerged in more than 5m of water about 10km off the northwestern tip of the Island of the Sun, a central feature of Lake Titicaca.
The central part of the lake used to use as a strategic and ritually charged place, said the archaeologists. At the Island of the Sun and the Khoa Reef, religious leaders could come together for sacred ceremonies.
‘The ritual offerings they made here demonstrate the transitioning of societies from more local-based religious systems to something that had a more ambitious geopolitical and spiritual appeal,’ Jose Capriles added.
