|Bolivia Table of Contents The Bolivian highlands, permanently
settled for at least 21,000 years, were part of the culture of
Andean South America before the arrival of the Spaniards. The
records are fragmentary but suggest that agriculture started
about 3000 B.C. and that the production of metal, especially
copper, began 1,500 years later. By 600 B.C., the first great
Andean empire had emerged on the high plateau between the
mountains known as the Altiplano. This empire, the Tiahuanacan,
was centered near the southeastern side of Lake Titicaca and
included urban centers around the lake, as well as enclaves in
different ecological zones from the eastern valleys to the
Pacific Coast. Tiahuanaco was a great center of trade and
religion, and the impact of its culture spread far beyond the
boundaries of present-day Bolivia. Apparently, the Tiahuanacan
Empire was established through colonization rather than through
conquest. Its rapid expansion after 1000 and sudden collapse
around 1200 are still poorly understood