Underwater ritual offerings in the Island of the Sun and the formation of the Tiwanaku state

Christophe Delaere, José M. Capriles, and Charles Stanish

PNAS April 23, 2019 116 (17) 8233-8238; 
first published April 1, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1820749116

1. Contributed by Charles Stanish, February 27, 2019 (sent for review December 6, 2018; reviewed by John Janusek and Joyce Marcus)

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Significance

Ritual and religion are significant factors in primary or archaic state formation. These beliefs and practices not only legitimize these new political organizations in their ability to control supernatural forces, but also incentivize intragroup cooperation by punishing freeloading and rewarding cooperative behavior. Recent archaeological excavations from an underwater ceremonial location near the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca have revealed the remarkable constituent elements of repetitive rituals practiced by the Tiwanaku state between the 8th and 10th centuries CE. Evidence of animal sacrifice and high-value offerings of vessels, gold, shells, and lapidary stones on a strategically located reef illustrates how power was consolidated in one of the earliest Andean states.

Abstract

Considerable debate surrounds the economic, political, and ideological systems that constitute primary state formation. Theoretical and empirical research emphasize the role of religion as a significant institution for promoting the consolidation and reproduction of archaic states. The Tiwanaku state developed in the Lake Titicaca Basin between the 5th and 12th centuries CE and extended its influence over much of the south-central Andes of South America. We report on recent discoveries from the first systematic underwater archaeological excavations in the Khoa Reef near the Island of the Sun, Bolivia. The depositional context and compositional properties of offerings consisting of ceramic feline incense burners, killed juvenile llamas, and sumptuary metal, shell, and lapidary ornaments allow us to reconstruct the structure and significance of cyclically repeated state rituals. Using new theoretical tools, we explain the role of these rituals in promoting the consolidation of the Tiwanaku polity.

CHAPTER 18

ABIEZER COPPE AND THE RANTERS 

ARIEL HESSAYON 

In 1652 Mary Adams of Tillingham, Essex apparently died by her own hand. According to a pamphlet entitled The Ranters Monster printed at London for George Horton (Figure 18.1), Adams claimed that she had been made pregnant by the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, she reportedly denied the Gospels’ teachings, wickedly declaring that Christ had not yet appeared in the flesh but that she was to give birth to the true Messiah. For these supposed blasphemies Adams was imprisoned. After a protracted labour of eight days, she gave birth on the ninth day to a stillborn, ugly, misshapen monster. This loathsome creature was said to have neither hands nor feet, but claws like a toad. Adams herself became consumed by disease, rotting away; her body disfigured by blotches, boils, and putrid scabs. To compound her sins she refused to repent and then committed the terrible crime of suicide by ripping open her bowels with a knife. The account in The Ranters Monster was reproduced in some contemporary newsbooks and subsequently in a broadside enumerating the great blasphemers of the times. It was, however, fictitious. While the pamphlet formed part of the genre of monstrous births, which tended to be interpreted as providential signs warning against private and public sin, it also served another function: as an admonition against the licentiousness of the Ranters and an affirmation of the dreadful divine punishments that awaited all such reprobates.

Gender,Production, and ‘the Transition to Capitalism’: Assessing the Historical Basis for a Unitary Materialist Theory

Gary Blank

York University

ABSTRACT: 

When socialist feminists discussed the potential and pitfalls of Marxism in the “domestic labour debate,” the specific relationship between patriarchy and capital emerged as a defining concern. While offering a trenchant critique of orthodox Marxism, the tenor of the debate was highly abstract and theoretical, and largely ignored the question of capitalism’s origins. Political Marxists, in contrast, have devoted fastidious attention to this question in their own attempt to renew historical materialism; but their dialogue has dedicated little attention to questions of gender, families, and social reproduction in the feminist sense. This paper makes an initial attempt at closing the analytical gap between these two historical materialist traditions. It departs from an unresolved theoretical impasse within the socialist feminist tradition: how to conceive of the imperatives of capital accumulation and class in a way that avoids both reductionism and dual-

ism. I argue that this tension stems principally from an inadequate historicization of capitalism. A critical assessment of Wally Seccombe historical work illustrates how political Marxism can be deployed to correct this deficiency, while also revealing the extent to which these concepts must be rethought in light of materialist feminist concerns. A synthesis of

the two traditions offers a more complete and effective account of the transition, while providing a basis for a unitary materialist theory.

KEYWORDS: Brenner debate, materialist feminism, political Marxism, primitive accumulation, social reproduction, socialist feminism, transition from feudalism to capitalism

Diggers, Levellers and Agrarian Capitalism Radical Political Thought in 17th Century English
Geoff Kennedy

This book situates the development of radical English political thought within the context of the specific nature of agrarian capitalism and the struggles that ensued around the nature of the state during the revolutionary decade of the 1640s. In the context of the emerging conceptions of the state and property—with attendant notions of accumulation, labor, and the common good—groups such as Levellers and Diggers developed distinctive forms of radical political thought not because they were progressive, forward thinkers, but because they were the most significant challengers of the newly-constituted forms of political and economic power.

Drawing on recent re-examinations of the nature of agrarian capitalism and modernity in the early modern period, Geoff Kennedy argues that any interpretation of the political theory of this period must relate to the changing nature of social property relations and state power. The radical nature of early modern English political thought is therefore cast in terms of its oppositional relationship to these novel forms of property and state power, rather than being conceived of as a formal break from discursive conventions.

'This impressive study takes on a major challenge. Geoff Kennedy not only offers a clear and persuasive account of political ideas in their historical context, but also engages in methodological debate with other historians of political thought and explores the controversies among scholars of this much contested period in English history. He manages to interweave these different strands with commendable clarity and in accessible prose, suitable to a wide audience from specialists to students and the intelligent general reader.'
Ellen Meiksins Wood - York University, Canada"

More Info: Lexington Books 2008

Chumbawamba - The Diggers' Song 

The Digger's Song - Leon Rosselson

World Turned Upside Down - Leon Rosselson

Great English singer songwriter, Leon Rosselson, sings his own tribute to The Diggers and to Thomas Paine.

Dick Gaughan - world turned upside down

dall' album Handful of Earth del 1981.

1. 
   
2. 
   

   2:33

   The world turned upside down - Billy Bragg

Attila The Stockbroker - March of the Levellers/The Diggers' Song

Levellers and ranters and diggers - Permanent Culture Now

https://www.permanentculturenow.com/a-common-peoples-history-of-the-uk-part-3-l...

Aug 25, 2012 - A common peoples history of the UK part 3: Levellers and ranters and diggers. ... In 1649 Gerrard Winstanley and a small band of Diggers occupied a patch of waste land on St George's Hill in Surrey, to 'work together, eat bread together', in the belief that 'the Earth ought to be a common Treasury to all'.

A common peoples history of the UK part 3:Levellers and ranters and diggers. ... In 1649 Gerrard Winstanley and a small band of Diggers occupied a patch of waste land on St George's Hill in Surrey, to 'work together, eat bread together', in the belief that 'the Earth ought to be a common Treasury to all'.Aug 25, 2012

The Ranters - Spartacus Educational
https://spartacus-educational.com › The English Civil War › History of Socialism
A detailed account of The Ranters that includes includes quotations and the ... Lilburne and the Levellers and described the Diggers as the "True Levellers".

The World Turned Upside Down - Levellers, Diggers,  Ranters, 14th April 2019

 Published on Apr 15, 2019

Attila the Stockbroker and John Rees celebrate the radical movements at the heart of the English Revolution, Levellers, Diggers and Ranters. Event in East Oxford Community Hall.

An afternoon of discussion, poetry and song to celebrate the legacy of the most radical movements of the 1640s. Co-hosted by Oxfordshire Refugee Solidarity (ORS), Oxford Momentum and Attila the Stockbroker to raise funds for the work of ORS supporting refugees and local charities in northern France.
Two very different commentators on the role of Levellers, Diggers and Ranters during and after the English Revolution.

ALSO SEE ATLANTIC HISTORY  REVIEWS OF THE MANY HEADED HYDRA