The Tiwanaku Tradition within the Tambo Valley, Southern Coast of Peru: Interpretation of Burial Contexts from La Pampilla 1

Józef Szykulski,Jakub Wanot

doi:10.1017/laq.2021.18

Abstract

The collapse of the Tiwanaku state around AD 1000 resulted in dramatic changes in the areas of its former colonies such as the Moquegua Valley, which featured the largest Tiwanaku communities outside the Altiplano. The inhabitants of these former colonies were forced to relocate to the areas north of Moquegua, including the Tambo River estuary (Arequipa Department, Province of Islay). This relocation has been confirmed at La Pampilla 1, where a large graveyard featuring funerary contexts of the postcollapse communities of Tiwanaku-Timulaca was found, with a calibrated14C date between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries AD. In this article we discuss the results of excavations and analyses conducted at the La Pampilla 1 graveyard, the first systematically researched Tiwanaku site in the Tambo Valley: these findings confirm the existence of a relatively large, terminal-phase Tiwanaku population, represented by Tumilaca funerary contexts.

Highlights

The collapse of the Tiwanaku state around AD 1000 resulted in dramatic changes in the areas of its former colonies such as the Moquegua Valley, which featured the largest Tiwanaku communities outside the Altiplano
The research at La Pampilla 1 provides evidence for the movement of postcollapse Tumilaca communities to the area north of the OsmoreMoquegua Valley. The discovery of such an extensive cemetery indicates the existence of a relatively large community practicing Tiwanaku traditions within the Tambo estuary. This claim may be reinforced by the limited surface finds from Pampa Blanca and La Pampilla 2 sites (Krajewska and Mikocik 2014:145, 155); the fragments of an anthropomorphic Tiwanaku kero cup registered within the Carrizal 1 site in the Yalaque (Szykulski 2013:410); and ceramic wares in the collection of the Museo Arqueológico de la Universidad Católica Santa María in Arequipa that were from the Arenal cemetery, which was destroyed in the twentieth century (Figure 3)
The form of burial structures found in La Pampilla 1 seems to be characteristic for the Tiwanaku cemeteries both from the Lake Titicaca basin (Isbell and Korpisaari 2012; Korpisaari 2006) and from the Osmore-Moquegua Valley, from the Chen Chen burial site dated to the state period of Tiwanaku development, and from Tumilaca la Chimba cemetery used by postcollapse Tumilaca communities (Sharratt 2011; Sharratt et al 2012; Williams et al 2006)