On the Absolute Chronology of Late Tiwanaku / Early Late Intermediate Period Ceramic Traditions: Case Studies from the Bolivian Altiplano and North Chile

Summary

Although the timing of the Tiwanaku collapse is debated and probably varied somewhat from one region to another, this process probably took place in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. In 1998-2006, I worked at two Tiwanaku heartland sites which produced long series of radiocarbon dates corresponding to this critical period. At the cemetery site of Tiraska, ceramic grave goods in a style closely resembling Tiwanaku V were present from the early 10th until the mid-13th century AD. On the island of Pariti, our investigations uncovered the remains of a probable closing offering: huge quantities of "Classic" Tiwanaku pottery in two contexts securely dated to circa AD 1000. As for North Chile, many of the 16 radiocarbon dates I obtained in 2013-2014 for four "Middle Horizon" cemetery sites of the Azapa Valley are surprisingly late; this is especially true for the dates related to the Cabuza ceramic tradition, all of which post-date AD 1000. In light of the abovementioned case studies I shall discuss the use-life of the "Classic" and "Decadent" ceramic styles in the Tiwanaku heartland and the possibility that the spread of the Cabuza pottery into North Chile was largely related to the collapse of the Tiwanaku state.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Regional Perspectives on the Tiwanaku Collapse: "Post-expansive" chronology, cultural transformation and ethnogenesis in the south central Andes

Keywords

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