A History of Research at Khonkho Wankane1
Long before archaeologists discovered the site, local Aymara groups had been curating and venerating three sculpted but heavily eroded monoliths, and much of a fourth was found in 1941 (Portugal 1955).
The east and west sides of the platform are bounded by two streams that drain water from semi-permanent springs in the Kimsachata-Chilla foothills to the Rio Grande (Figure 3).
Figure 3: The two mounds of Khonkho, Wankane and Putuni.
The north and south edges of the platform are surrounded by narrow marshes, remnants of artificial ditches that were frequently inundated in the past.
North and slightly east of the bounded platform is the Putuni mound, a natural hillock that, like Wankane, was converted into a platform.
These two mounds comprise Khonkho Wankane.
It is remarkable that so little research had been conducted at Khonkho Wankane prior to Proyecto Jach'a Machaca's inception in 2001.
Apparently, the site had been curated and revered by inhabitants of Qhunqhu Liqiliqi, and perhaps, the more encompassing Jesus de Machaca community, for centuries.
Nevertheless, there is no known mention of the ruins until the twentieth century (Portugal Zamora 1955:51).
The archaeological history of the site began with a denouncement published in a local periodical by a citizen of Guaqui, a large town en route to the site from the Tiwanaku Valley (Anónimo 1936b).
The article decried illicit excavations by a Spaniard, Valentín López de Diego (Portugal 1998:117; Rydén 1947:89).
Fritz Buck (1937:183) notes that Lopez "discovered" the site early in 1936.
Yet Jedu Sagarnaga (1987:46) cites a document (Anónimo 1936a) that names Buck in collaboration with Lopez in disturbing the site and breaking in half one of its primary monoliths (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The first published photograph of Khonkho Wankane,
showing (left to right) Fritz Buck, Maks Portugal,
and Guillermo Mariaca behind the Jinchun Kala Monolith.
This was the first archaeological commission to Khonkho
Wankane, in 1936 (from Fritz Buck, El Calendario Maya en
la Cultura de Tiahuanacu, La Paz, Lit. e Imp. Unidos., 1937:Figure 66).
Later that same year, Maks Portugal Zamorra, Director of the Museo Nacional de La Paz, published a brief description of the site and its monoliths in the La Paz paper, La Razón.
In November of 1937, Minister of Education and Indigenous Affairs, Alfredo Peñaranda, organized the first archaeological commission to investigate the site and its zone.
Heading the project was Maks Portugal, accompanied by Fritz Buck (interestingly) and Guillermo Mariaca (Anónimo 1936b).
As a result, Khonkho Wankane became the second archaeological site to be registered in Bolivia, following Tiwanaku (1919).
Footnotes:
1. The following text consists of excerpts drawn from the paper in progress, The Machaca Region of the Southern Lake Titicaca Basin: Past Research and a Revised Chronology for the Sites of Khonkho Wankane and Pukara de Khonkho, John W. Janusek, to be published in Advances in the Archaeology of the Lake Titicaca Basin, Vol. II, edited by Elizabeth Klarich, Abigail Levine, Alexei Vranich, and Charles Stanish (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press).
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