Communities in the Campo: Household Excavations at a Tiwanaku Frontier Settlement in the Middle Locumba Valley, Peru (ca. AD 500–1100)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper I present preliminary findings from extensive household excavations at the large multicomponent site, Cerro San Antonio (L1), in the middle Locumba Valley in southern Peru. While the site represents a valuable dataset for nearly all periods of Andean prehistory, this current research has targeted domestic remains with clear affiliations to the Tiwanaku polity, which influenced much of the south-central Andes during the Middle Horizon (ca. AD 500–1100). Defined by three separate domestic sectors, the Tiwanaku occupation at Cerro San Antonio appears to be one of the largest settlement enclaves outside Tiwanaku’s highland center over 200 km away in Bolivia. Taking a holistic approach to the domestic assemblage this paper will present initial results from ceramic, lithic, faunal, botanic, and textile analysis coupled with detailed built environment and other context-driven spatial data. Excellent material preservation, shallow deposits, and a detailed, micro-context excavation strategy has yielded an unprecedented view into the domestic activities and community practices which defined the daily lives of the site’s Middle Horizon occupants. This will be a powerful comparative dataset for those studying the Tiwanaku polity and daily life in the ancient Andes more generally.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32806