The actions and meanings of visible and hidden spaces at Formative Chiripa

Abstract

The material evidence for a ceremonial tradition in the Titicaca Basin region began in the Formative phase. It includes a dispersed range of places and material evidence that entail both open and enclosed spaces. This paper investigates the evidence for how newly sedentary populations on the Taraco peninsula created meaningful places in the landscape during the Early and Middle Formative periods. The early buildings at Chiripa referenced an animated and powerful landscape through both the creation of vistas that directed observation toward important geographical features and their architecture and stone carvings. Several of the excavated spaces at the settlement of Chiripa suggest scales of the possible ceremonies that could have been held as well as the movements of people in those spaces. These spaces and their sensory impacts imply shifting experiences with the heavens, the lake, and the land, bringing them together in one place. These built spaces allow us to sense both centripetal as well as centrifugal social dynamics, allowing us to think about how the landscape participated in the residents’ ontologies.