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PERU: In the Titicaca basin in the first millennium B.C., there were two population centers, Taraco and Pukara. Come the first century A.D., there was only one. Taraco was burned to the ground and Pukara began to expand. Researchers theorize that a war between the two polities was critical in the development of Pukara as the region's first true state, with elites, urbanized settlements, a warrior class, and economic surpluses. It wouldn't last, though—Pukara itself collapsed around A.D. 400.
