Pottery Traditions in the Hyperarid Core of the Atacama Desert: Petrography and Geochemistry of Iluga Túmulos Ceramics (Tarapacá, Northern Chile)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Iluga Túmulos site (900 BC–AD 1600) is an archaeological area of great significance, with abandoned agricultural and public structures partially buried by aridization processes. It represents a record of multiple cultural occupations, which started in the Early Formative and continued until Inca and Spanish times. Among mounds, squares, and different structures is a surface covered with different archaeological materials. Ceramics are certainly the most abundant material with examples from the Early and Late Formative; Late Intermediate of the western valleys and altiplano; and imperial, provincial, and local specimens of Inca times, as well as Hispanic colonial pieces. The goal of this research is to extend the study of ceramics through petrography (thin sections) and geochemistry (major, minor, and trace elements and radiogenic isotopes). Results obtained are crucial to explain the existence and development of ceramic traditions in Tarapacá, allowing us to also comment on other social issues. Particularly, the transmission of knowledge, possible sources, and choices of raw materials, paste recipes, circulation, and exchange of vessels between populations in the south-central Andes. Our purpose is to define human group circulation through ceramic raw materials, using a novel database of ceramic petrography and geochemistry for northern Chile.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33438