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Introduction
cestors are kept with the living they can participate in
the decisions and thus become important in community
and political life. Thus there is a link between the re-
mains of the dead, the architecture that contains them,
and the veneration of the dead. This is most clearly il-
out the landscape as part of the mallkis realm. Theseplaces were associated with the dead, making not only
the bundles and their contents, but also these places
powerful memorials that evoked access to the spirits of
fertility and regeneration. Such territorial cosmology
was hard to eradicate (Abercrombie, 1986). Thus we
haeo* Fax: 1-510-643-8557.The important, provocative book by Isbell (1997) on
ancestor veneration and ayllu formation has crystallized
a series Andean discussions over the creation of Andean
life and society. In his book he proposes that highland
ayllus are truly formed only after the rst great highland
states, in the Late Intermediate Period (also called the
time of Se~nnorios, or Regional States). With much detailabout chullpas and other above ground structures that
enclose the dead, he makes a case for why, when an-
lustrated in the mummy bundle (mallki) veneration of
the Inka (Arriaga, 1968 [1621]; Doyle, 1988; Rowe,
1946, 1995; Salomon, 1995). Spanish accounts document
these powers of the sacred ancestors and their place as
heads of lineages and stewards of the landscape. Two
hundred years later the Spanish set out to destroy these
ancestral mummy bundles, once they realized that the
dead themselves were worshipped. What the Spanish
religious authorities had not planned on was the fact
that people also worshipped named locations through-Abstract
In the Andes of South America, the ancestors have been known to be an important font of power and perpetuation
since the Spanish began writing about the area. The question of the prominence of ancestral worship in early settled
communities and its role in societal formation has been an ongoing discussion for Andean archaeologists. Recent
archaeological research in the Titicaca Basin suggests that this dynamic was important in the earliest societal formation.
This thesis is based in part on the evidence that early architecture was for civic memorials rather than domestic
habitation. In addition the artifactual remains suggest these constructions were in part for ancestor veneration.
Community creation and social experimentation charged by ritual are illustrated at the Formative site of Chiripa on the
Taraco Peninsula in Bolivia. To demonstrate this thesis of community creation through rituals surrounding ancestral
energies, the role of relational personhood, kinship, and social memory in community construction, based on practice
theory is rst outlined. Next the place of burials in the Andean world and the creation of ancestors are dealt with.
Finally the ritual and memorials as seen in the archaeological evidence spanning 1500 years is traced.
2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.
Keywords: Social memory; Memorials; Ceremonial architecture; Formative period; AndesCommunity with the ancememory in the Middle Fo
Christine
Department of Anthropology, University o
Received 8 July 2002
Journal of Anthropological ArcE-mail address: [email protected].
0278-4165/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All ridoi:10.1016/S0278-4165(03)00029-1rs: ceremonies and socialative at Chiripa, Bolivia
Hastorf *
lifornia, Berkeley, CA 94720-3710, USA
sed 3 February 2003
logy 22 (2003) 305332
www.elsevier.com/locate/jaalearn from the 16th century that resources, lineage, and
ghts reserved.
-
claims of the descent groups (Josephedes, 1991). It will
306 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332memory were intimately linked. We can assume that
these relationships were built up over many years, be-
coming interwoven in Andean political and social life
in various political settings. When and how did these
temporal, spatial and material relationships develop,
and what role did they play in Andean social cohesion
and political formation?
At the time of the Spanish conquest, ayllus were
corporate landholding groups that had mutual obliga-
tions with the dead ancestors concerning care of the
territory, resources, and their descent group (Rowe,
1946; Salomon, 1991; Spaulding, 1984). They were po-
litical entities on the ground, the smallest social au-
thority. When Albor~nnoz (1989) and Cobo (1988 [1653])wrote about religious activities in the 16th century they
noted that there were certain types of huacas, sacred
places, where mummied corpses of former leaders were
worshipped and revered. They were talking about a
form of worship, specic to the ayllu, or family group
that descended, truly or ctively, from the ancestors.
They note that the descendents curated the bodies with
great care between walls, including clothes, adornment,
and goblets, and bring them out to eat, drink, and dis-
cuss matters of political interest. Other documents de-
scribe the places where the ancestors were kept as
modied caves, small houses, rooms, chapels or temples.
Some ancestors were buried under the oor or within the
house walls. In these descriptions, we see how enclosed,
dark, small spaces that can be visited by the living were
places for the most special ancestors during the 16th
century. These houses for the dead were always ac-
companied by an open place where the worshipers of the
dead could gather, called a cayan (Doyle, 1988, p. 111;
Moore, 1996, p. 125). These ancestral shrines therefore
included enclosed spaces for the rituals with an accom-
panying small enclosure for the dead. As Moore points
out, these spaces reect the need to constrict but not
prevent access to the mallkis while allowing the gath-
ering of a small social group (Moore, 1996, p. 126). It
was during the visitations with the mallki that people
came together, performing rituals of care and commun-
itas (Turner, 1969). Such community conrmation still
happens in places of pilgrimage like Copacabana in the
Lake Titicaca area and at annual community festivals.
These rituals not only reenact political relationships of
superior and inferior but also are times to reorder the
social fabric that has been ruptured by death.
Isbell suggests that such veneration, through mummy
presentation and their associated places of encounter, is
rst evident materially in the Andes in the Early Inter-
mediate Period (200 BC to AD 600). Elaborate marked
burials however seem to be evident with the rst sign of
territoriality in the Andean region. Rivera (1995) and
Arriaza (1996) note that, as early as 7000 BC, people
have been caring for the dead along the northern Chil-ean coast in the Chinchorro culture. In this preceramicbe through the changing burial and architectural evi-
dence that we can track the change and elaboration of
ancestor veneration and in turn the use of collective
memory to maintain a larger group.
Our western intellectual tradition increasingly places
the individual at the center. Today an individuals ac-tions and intentions drive society, while most objects
have been alienated from their histories (Thomas, 1996,
p. 72). For those who work in non-western traditions,
we have barriers to cross in our understanding and
empathizing with past lives, meanings and understand-
ings of relationships. While individual people created the
archaeological record by their activities, their inter-
connectedness with those objects and their intertwinedforaging and shing society, there was even embalming
and mummication of the ancestors, including both
adults and children. Arriaza (1995) conrms that over
hundreds of years some of the Chinchorro mummy
bundles were periodically extracted out of the tombs,
redressed, and replaced. Such care suggests the memory
of the dead person remained in the family, the larger kin,
and even the whole group. This care suggests that re-
wrapping and curating were acts of remembering, while
revisiting the rupture brought on by death to reorder the
living (Humphreys, 1981; Rowlands, 1993, p. 144).
Memorials are often used for such realignment of the
social world. Thus we see both building memory and
society in these Chinchorro bodies.
Memory of family
Before we follow the changing patterns of ritual that
accompanied increasing formalization of the Formative
architecture in the Titicaca Basin, I explore three main
notions that participate in social development. First is
the concept of relational personhood, where individual
identity is formed by the relations between people and
things that circulate within their world (Strathern, 1988;
Thomas, 1996, p. 73). These relational systems form the
social and political fabric of the lineage. The second
notion is that the actions of people are tethered by the
modes of possibility and circumstance, by their daily
practices that are both intentional and unintentional
(Bourdieu, 1977; Dobres and Robb, 2000, p. 5; Giddens,
1979; Hodder, 2003). The third notion is the role of
social memory as it activates social relationships and
moral authority through activities in designated places
with specic material culture. Memorializing social re-
lationships and authority through the deceased trans-
mits meaning while providing a promise for the future
(Bradley, 1990; Rowlands, 1993; Whittle, 1996). These
memorials are the materializations of the sociality as
well as a locus for maneuvering the future politicalsocial contexts formed a network of energetics and
-
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 307qualities that transferred meaning between the involved
things and people, worlding the objects as Thomas
calls it (Thomas, 1996, p. 72, 153). In this setting, rela-
tionships among people and things are social. Thus
objects, homes, and land that people live among become
the web of signication that builds identity within a
maze of kin and material.
Students of agency theory have been eager to place
individual actions in the forefront of past study in our
likeness (Dobres and Robb, 2000). It might be helpful to
realign this notion of agency a bit by shifting the center
of action to what was more likely the dominant social
force in daily life, a person acting in a collective web, in
relation to their living (and deceased) kin. Marx (1963,
p. 15) focused our attention on the situational reality in
which individuals exercise choices (make their own his-
tory) within the limits of their circumstances that are
created by their past. Choices of action were as they are
for us, not innite, and agency was not free-oating.
This situational boundedness is the basis of many con-
cepts in Anthropology, from Barths ethnic identities(1969) to agency theory (Dobres and Robb, 2000).
People live relationally through time, altering their in-
teractions and attitudes to those around them as they
grow.
It follows from this relational web of persons and
things that some knowledge was maintained through the
remembering of those persons; remembering stories,
myths and morals through the visual clues of daily
practice and ritual performance. In societies where a
relational rather than individualized notion of person-
hood prevails, both persons and things circulate in ex-
changes, which contribute to the formation of the
identities of each (Thomas, 1996, p. 73). It is these re-
lational identities, formed by meaningful action with
things and people that maintain cultural traditions of
identity as well as become the locus for manipulation
and change. These notions of interconnectedness be-
tween people and things allow cosmology and commu-
nity history to become visible in material and therefore
patterned (Strathern, 1988; Thomas, 1996, p. 153).
People, in their daily lives are routinized, gaining
knowledge as well as social skills through experience and
observation (Bourdieu, 1977; Giddens, 1979). Bourdieu
is not the rst person to notice this. Every mother and
father learns that children feel secure as well as learn
most easily with routines, not just temporal and spatial
routines but routines of meaning (Barrett, 2000; Dobres
and Robb, 2000). Just as practical competence is passed
on to children through the enactments of daily chores,
activities, stories and justications, so too are the com-
munity values of production and worldview (Bourdieu,
1977). Repetition of actions and their recursive mean-
ings allow a groups traditions (unreexive knowledge)to be passed down in instruction and memory (Giddens,1979; Hodder, 1986, 1987; Pauketat, 2000, p. 115).Through this practical enculturation, it is possible to
instill a whole cosmology,. . .a political philosophy. . .(Hodder, 1986, p. 76). These practices also transfer a
moral order that is imbued in the activities and events.
Bourdieu emphasizes how these routines create hab-
itus, the unspoken way of doing things in a personsdaily world (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 94). They help control
the uncertainty and the chaos of the day and season,
grounding actions from the past to help people move
into the future. Each new event requires a response that
will be both a version of past responses as well as an
alteration of the present circumstances. Agency there-
fore is individually constructed, operating within a his-
tory that is directed by the desires and meanings of the
moment (Barrett, 2000). Each action, Butler (1993, p.
15) argues, is only an imperfect citation of the norm,
which is created through past practices and remem-
brances of the way to do things. Within the routines,
slippage occurs in the completion of tasks, hence, people
(agents) change these tasks over time, through their
practices (situations and meanings) of the routines
(structures). This discrepancy between practice and
norm, as well as the lapse in recall that occurs between
one practice and the next over time, allows for forgetting
(strategic remembering) and thus shifting of the norms
while adding new directions and, at times, enhanced
meanings (Rowlands, 1993, p. 141). Unintended out-
comes occur not simply when an actors plan goes awry,but with imperfect knowledge and reproduction of the
social contexts (Bourdieu, 1977, pp. 52, 65; Dobres and
Robb, 2000, p. 10).
The point of practice theory is not only to explain
change over time through this individual slippage, but
also to understand the continuity and cohesion that
occurs through the maintenance of certain cultural
practices. Some practices breed strong connectedness
that supports communal association (Milner, 1994;
Pauketat, 2000). Regardless of diering goals and the
varying knowledge of the participants, there can be a
voluntary collective action that renews the group and
the participant. This action creates solidarity and
meaning. Repetition invokes the original meaning but
under slightly dierent circumstances each time. We can
study these circumstances archaeologically and through
that, the strength of the associated meanings. It is
through the acts and commitments of those involved
that the past meanings are transmitted into the future.
How do such activities renew group cohesion?
The role of memory
Events that invoke the ancestors through social
memory operate on multiple levels that can be channeled
to unite the community (Connerton, 1989; Rowlands,
1993). Connerton tells us Concerning social memory,we may note that images of the past commonly
-
308 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332legitimate a present social order. It is an implicit rule
that participants in any social order must presuppose a
shared memory. (1989, p. 3). He reminds us too that
peoples memories vary. This divergence (slippage) canmake complete communality dicult. Therefore events
may be periodically enacted to help realign members
of the group. Valued experiences must be shared. A
powerful and socially oriented path to communality is
through ritual.
Rituals are events that construct a symbolic system in
a dierent space and time (Leach, 1968). They promote
shared memories through incorporated practices that
link generations while being inclusive for each member
(Bell, 1992; Turner, 1969). Ritual performances there-
fore convey acceptable social knowledge by drawing
upon past bodily social memory (Connerton, 1989, p. 4).
Ritual acts become important loci of cosmological, so-
cial and political order. Even the domestic can be ritual.
This places ritual centrally in an active role of commu-
nity creation. Places where ritual occurs therefore can
evoke important collective memories, renewed through
codied remembering.
Oral societies often bring a group together through
recitation of their origins and histories, through propi-
tiation of the spirits, and through communing with the
ancestors. These stories and their associated rituals,
performed in certain settings with specic valued objects
in a repetitive, stylized form oer ways to renew and
realign social identities and lineages. These situations
allow for maneuvered change as well as continuity
through selective memory (Hendon, 2000, p. 49). In this
way social memory creates a moral authority of a group
that goes beyond place, object, and act.
Connerton goes on to suggest that individuals locate
their own memories within the mental and material
spaces of a group, as the group shares its memories
(1989, p. 37). Therefore societies that operate with re-
lational personhood have stronger links to group
memory. In these settings, the creation of self is rela-
tional, which is sustained through ritual performance.
One powerful locus of group solidarity is the use of
icons and memorials that recall past authority gures
(Dillehay, 1990; Rowlands, 1993). Objects, natural
forms and built architecture create a setting that con-
cretizes rituals, calling up past practices as well as cos-
mologies. Ritual performances therefore send out webs
of meanings throughout the participants (Deleuze and
Guattari, 1988). It is through these remembered histories
and associated performances that meanings are trans-
mitted from one generation to another, often jumping a
generation (Rowlands, 1993, p. 141). This transference
of social memory can be remarkably persistent (Conn-
erton, 1989, p. 40). Memorials establish a temporal
continuum between the living and the larger powers
embodied in the sacred space (Milner, 1994). As Thomaspoints out The presentness of things is as signicant astheir evocation of the past (Thomas, 1996, p. 81). This
is why certain objects can hold signicance, stimulating
connectedness through their histories (Apadurai, 1986;
Strathern, 1988). Memories can be jogged and authority
called up by these physical places and associated objects,
making memory visible (Bradley, 1990;Hendon,
2000;Rowlands, 1993; Thomas, 1996).
Ritual performances renew social relations, rearm
lineage membership, recruit new members, regulate land
use rights, and monitor authority (Dillehay, 1990).
Thus, certain places and things become mnemonic de-
vices for communitas (Turner, 1969). World War me-
morials that are placed in the center of every town in
England are mnemonic devices that draw in the viewer
to remember and thereby to enact a sense of past com-
munity, while the memory remains (Rowlands, 1993;
Thomas, 1991, 1996). Meaning therefore is constituted
in memory.
Ritual spaces are formally dened because they allow
for basic knowledge communication between members
and between these members and the cosmos (Moore,
1996, p. 137). Formal repetition can make a
mark archaeologically, seen in the repetitive build-
ing and internment styles within phases and hori-
zons. Such charged locales tend to be demarcated
(Hendon, 2000).
With funerals that memorialize the dead during a
time of social rupture, there is the need for rearmation,
where the power of the person is transferred to the larger
social order (Chesson, 1999). Such materialization of
social memory has been studied by Dillehay, 1990 in the
Chilean Mapuche. He found that ceremonial mound
building revolves around burials. Ethnographically,
Dillehay found that the renewal of these mounds during
a funerary gathering became a locus for changing social
relations within kin-group alliance building. The cere-
monies during these mound renewal events also involved
recruitment in to marriage alliances, trading partners,
land use rights and the regulation of outsider incorpo-
ration into the group (Dillehay, 1990, p. 225). In these
actions we see Connertons social memory enacted in thebodily performances of Mapuche mound renewals
(Dillehay, 1990). Such places become material indicators
of collective action, the lineages authority directlyconnecting with the powers of the dead (Deleuze and
Guattari, 1988). In this way the agency of the group is
grounded in collective memory, activated by the rupture
of the dead.
Memorializing the dead
Parker Pearson (1993, p. 203) has noted that when
there is evidence of increasing incorporation of the dead
into the world of the living, there is a growing concern
with lineage and ones place within society. In these sit-uations the living conrm their social relations through
-
concrete example. Their memory was in part maintained
through the situated relationships of specic family
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 309their relationships with the dead, done in object and
in deed. The formality of the architecture reecting
repetitive burial rituals allow archaeologists to investi-
gate the dead and their place in social formation
(Rowlands, 1993).
I am not claiming that as archaeologists we can un-
derstand the multiple meanings of these embodied places
nor know the memories that were evoked by these pla-
ces. Nor can we begin to locate all of the named and
valued places in the landscape, let alone the objects that
circulated through such social rituals. But by charting
and detailing the characteristics of the sacred communal
places we can begin to recognize ritual in the material
record (Dillehay, 1990). As Jerry Moore so aptly points
out, [these] ritual spaces are distinguished from other
constructed environments in that they are special and
unique. . .. Change in size, function, and organization ofmonumental constructions reect. . .changes in the na-ture of social power. (1996, p. 139). Shifts in con-
struction style, scale, material (permanence), size, access,
and visibility all give us clues to the signicance of these
memorials in some of the inhabitants lives. Out of these
details can come a better sense of intentions, values, and
community relations.
While many memorials are not focused on the dead,
as with storage (Hendon, 2000) or trade items (Weiner,
1992), many rituals evoke the past. The development of
centralized burial practices mark a form of social
memory of community formation materially, and thus
the web of group solidarity as well as group strife
(Pauketat, 2000). What is particularly signicant about
the dead and their burials is the potential for making the
dead visible through the memorials that can be built as
an extension of the body (Parker Pearson, 1982, 2000;
Rowlands, 1993). The dierent styles of civic space and
memorialization reect not only the scale of the collec-
tive but also the levels of access and therefore the layered
knowledge experienced by the participants.
Burials and their placement within communities il-
lustrate how the living used the dead (Moore, 1996).
This socio-spatial dynamic is cogently tracked in the
European Neolithic evidence by Alisdair Whittle where
he nds new forms of community created through ritu-
als and feasts for the ancestors in association with the
spread of the Linear Band Keramik culture (1996). In
the LBK data there is a clear placement of the graves in
separate cemeteries adjacent to the living compounds.
With this more formal grave placement Whittle claims
there was an accompanying sense of sociality reected in
the beginnings of descent and veneration of the dead.
Whittle claims the layout and scale of the interments
suggest that the Neolithic rituals surrounding the dead
were celebrating a timeless past while creating group
cohesion (Moore, 1996).
The inhabitants of the Andean region and indeedSouth America also used the dead (and the ancestors) asmembers who became ancestors. This is visible with the
increasing formalization of the civic architecture sur-
rounding burials in many Andean sequences.
It is not simply that there were burials and bundles in
structures that could be visited throughout the South
American coast and highlands, but that these buildings
were constructed such that they marked the social group
on the landscape. These ancestors could then be invoked
to participate in the renewal of the group, in the re-
alignment of power and the legitimization of political
claims, creating social dierence simultaneously with
solidarity (Milner, 1994; Pauketat, 2000). If we assume
that community cohesion can be linked to such vener-
ation in the Andes, we should be able to identify social
process when we study burial shrines, especially located
in non-domestic architecture. How far back might such
community creation be visible archaeologically? When
did it begin and what did the material changes suggest
about veneration participating in societys cohesion?I propose that early highland Andean community life
was punctuated with periodic rituals, tying the family to
the landscape, as the concept of territoriality was in-
creasingly active. The changes that occurred in such
rituals can be illustrated at Chiripa, Bolivia a location of
early architecture in the region. This history began with
burials, usually with women as the central gure. Such
memorials helped to create a more sedentary lifestyle
that was associated with increasing population on the
peninsula. Thus, lineage solidication (with associated
recruitment and restriction) through ancestor veneration
became evident in civic building on the landscape.
The place of Andean kin
Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980) portrayed the daily
life of Andean people in an attempt to make these
people real to the distant Spanish monarch. He drew
Andean residents enacting activities that were proper for
each age group; children carry water, women weave,
boys tend ocks of llamas. He portrayed the lived ex-
perience of people, highlighting the stereotypic life cycle
stages, and associated activities of highland dwellers. Atimportant links to the landscapes powers and resources.There are innumerable ethnographic, historical, and
archaeological examples of this relationship. While I
agree with Isbell (1997) about the role of ancestors in kin
creation and political maintenance, I would like to leave
aside the specic issue of the ayllu and its temporal ex-
istence as a political construct, whilst studying these
earlier times. Rather I would prefer to focus on the
broader role of the ancestors in the construction of the
collective memory and continuance of the society in onethe end of his lifecycle portraits is a mummy bundle of a
-
310 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332dead elder. Interpersonal relationships and age classes
did not stop with death. Tales of past acts were told to
grandchildren while remembering the dead. We our-
selves receive histories of past family members. These
stories frame our path in life and not of ourselves. In
South America, the active role of the dead in the family
is part of the living culture. With death, a person is
transformed, gaining a new level of inuence and a new
ownership of resources.
In the Andes, the dead live in a world that parallels
the living. There is a world of farming and herding that
the dead undertake while the living sleep. In addition to
this parallel daily cycle, the deceased, the Machukuna,
have great inuence on the living, the Runakuna. All
deceased, not just the important people (the mallkis)
inuence the living (Allen, 1988). They cause animals to
visit the hunters, they cause both sh and storms that
visit the shermen and, by bringing rain, they make the
crops grow. As Tarlow (2001) noted, contrary to some
archaeologists perspectives about the dead, the recentScottish dead, like the Andean dead, continue to be
active in peoples lives and decisions. The living act asadvocates for the recently deceased among the living,
while the dead are advocates for the living with the
spirits of the earth.
Andean belief systems are lled with animism. Part of
this resonating force is expressed in the idea that all
material things have a living essence, especially if items
have been crafted or cared for (Allen, 1988, p. 179).
Even things that are dead hold this essence. These dead
include not only humans but also plants and animals.
Things like wooden tools or harvested crops are dead
but still interact with the living (Allen, 1988, p. 186).
When physically present, the dead can participate in the
decisions of the living. The living most often commu-
nicate with the dead through eating, which opens the
channels between the two worlds. Allen insightfully re-
ports on how force-feeding and intoxication open com-
munication between the living and the dead that allows
for a ow of energy and support. Such communication
ministers care to the dead, which calms them. Because
they are slightly resentful of the living, the dead can
become angry and cause harm. Therefore, they require
regular feeding. Such requirements allow the dead elders
to continue their inuence in a cycle of power relation-
ships within a community, which in turn provides
potency to the living who are feeding the dead.
This power of inanimate things, of the mallkis as well
as their resting places, highlights the corporeality of
ideas in the Andes. It is through communication with
these dead ancestors that the living maintain community
well-being, particularly for the productivity of crops and
animals (Allen, 1988, p. 183). What is the locus of
transmission with the elders? It is the bodily remains of
the ancestors, the bones, clothing, and their images.Catherine Allen notes that the people of Sonqo, Peru seethe bones of their dead as a locus of power as well as of
their own identity, Kept in a niche of a storeroom wall,
a skull is said to provide khuyay (protection and care)
for the room and its contents (Allen, 1988, p. 184). This
power can also be gained from small stones, shaped like
animals or potatoes. These small objects carrying this
inanimate essence are called illas (little carved animals
out of clay or stone), conopas (carved stones in the shape
of food stus), enqaychus (carved stones into heads and
potato shapes), and the living ones (Allen, 1988;
Doyle, 1988, p. 66). Today, such skulls or carved stones
are periodically honored with presentations and oer-
ings (Astvaldsson, 1994). These objects hold power over
the fecundity and the well being of the living, through
their association with the dead. Through these ethno-
graphic examples, we see how the social identity as well
as the economic power base (the animals and crops) are
signied in and transmitted by the ancestors and their
bodily essence.
To pursue an understanding of the creation and
maintenance of past social relations we must consider
the strong emotions that would be present in settings
where the dead were buried and periodically visited.
Rituals that include the dead, naming them and recalling
their memory, are full of feeling, not only due to the
sadness of the departed, but also due to the power that
the deceased can emit (Allen, 1988; Bell, 1992; Dillehay,
1990). People are not just driven to communicate with
the elders for resources and land. They are also moti-
vated by the emotional attachment to them as symbols
of group existence (Geertz, 1963). The dead therefore
should be included in the Andean life cycle as the ulti-
mate elders.
The messengers to the telluric deities are not always
grandparents. During the time of the Inka, children also
gained power for the lineage when they were sacriced,
forging a strong link between the living and the spirits.
We see this most clearly with the Inka ritual of ca-
pacocha, where young children of elites were left on the
top of mountains to reify their lineages (Guaman Poma
de Ayala, 1980; Reinhard, 1992, 1999). In this ritual,
children were oered to the mountain spirits, the elders
of the landscape. Through this sacrice, they became
messengers to the spirits for the living.
Fortes (1965) notes that ritual recognition of the
ancestors helps construct social identity and delimit a
corporate group on the landscape. Clearly such recog-
nition will have had variable impact through time and
cultural setting. Once we include the ancestors in the
social and the physical world of the past inhabitants, we
can begin to see their active place in past social forma-
tion. McAnany (1995, 1998) nds this in Mesoamerica.
Through a series of rituals, the Maya dead provided
rights and access to resources. Such rituals placed the
dead on the landscape by their burial pit, room or houseof the dead. From there, the deceased claimed a spatial,
-
of sacred objects.
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 311Moore (1996) insightfully traces the diering trends
of Andean ritual architecture through time, and there-
fore I will only focus on a few salient attributes in this
architectural history that directly relate to my argument.
One of Moores main points about this sequence is theimportance given to ancestor worship (1996, p. 166). He
sees a major shift in the style spectacle in the Middle
Formative with the addition of mound building, allow-
ing for spiritual and social dierences to be made more
visible on the landscape and in the rituals. Such mound
architecture suggests that there might have been two
levels of communion with the ancestors, a small intimate
interaction within the little rooms, and a larger suprarelational, and emotional territory with the living. In the
same way, Andean people today say they gain the land
they work on and its fertility from their ancestors. This
relationship is maintained and nurtured through rituals
of visiting, sharing, and feeding the dead. Remembering
the dead and their associated telluric spirits can be an act
as large as a feast and procession with the mummy
bundle, or as small as libations to the earth, invoked
every time drink or food is shared or the earth is opened
(as with the start of every day of excavation). The
landscape then participates in the creation of the group.
Through their ties with the ancestors, there is an essen-
tial territoriality to Andean social relations.
Andean ritual architecture
Ritual architecture is the earliest known permanent
construction in the Andes, beginning in the Archaic
(Preceramic) and Formative times. The rst multi-gen-
erational evidence was delimited space in association
with small rooms (Moore, 1996, p. 132). Some of the
earliest studied examples have been found at Asana in
the south-central highlands, at Huaynunaa and Asperoalong the north central coast, and later at Huaricoto,
Piruru, La Galgada, and Kotosh in the north central
highlands (Aldenderfer, 1990, 1991, 1993; Bonnier,
1997; Burger and Salazar-Burger, 1980, 1985; Grieder
et al., 1988; Izumi and Sono, 1963; Izumi and Terada,
1972; Moore, 1996; Pozorski and Pozorski, 1987; Po-
zorski and Pozorski, 1990). The essential ingredients of
these civic places include an enclosed or demarcated
space with a prepared oor. More elaborate sites have a
change of level with the entrance into the rooms and
bodies or places that could have contained bodies (ni-
ches) within the enclosures. In the north, the earliest
rooms have sunken hearths with ventilation shafts,
reminiscent of sweathouses. In the south there are sun-
ken enclosures open to the sky. Later, mounds are built
with small rooms on the top. Most important are the
small rooms and niches that recur, suggesting curationfamilial viewing at the base of the platforms. Thus thearchitecture projected the ideal cosmic order in which
the inhabitants operated (Milner, 1994; Moore, 1996, p.
167; Wheatley, 1971). As Moore notes, this structure
continues until the Spanish arrive.
These early mounds are best illustrated at La Galg-
ada, whose twin mounds were built between 2662 and
1395 BC (Grieder et al., 1988). Small rooms built upon
the mounds had sunken central hearths with ventilator
shafts. These rooms received the dead as new structures
were built on top of them. Around 1500 BC, Kotosh,
with the same style of architectural sequence and dual
mounds dotted with small structures that contained in-
ternal hearths, displays other forms of engagement with
the human body (Izumi and Sono, 1963). In one build-
ing there are clay molded, crossed human hands placed
just below a chest high niche, implying that human
heads were kept in such niches. Coastal sites like Aspero,
dating to 27002000 BC, show a combination of small
enclosed rooms on mounds that has an open plaza area
for large group rituals (Feldman, 1980). The deads placein these early ceremonies is seen at the coastal site of
Asia, dating around 2200 BC. Engel found a cache of
eight human crania wrapped in matting under the oor
of a non-domestic room (Engel, 1963; Moseley, 1992).
Here we see a materialization of the dead, either per-
manently or periodically in enclosed rooms.
The southcentral Andes has slightly later timing and
dierent scales and styles, but essentially the same se-
quence of ingredients. Asana, a preceramic site in the
highlands, dating between 3000 and 2400 BC displays
public space demarcation, illustrating the earliest ex-
ample of community gathering in the southcentral
highlands (Aldenderfer, 1990, 1991). The site has traces
of postholes that mark a series of walled enclosures
sitting on one side of the plastered surface, along with
basins, hearths, ash lenses, platforms and stone circles
(1991). Aldenderfer calls this precinct ceremonial and
suggests that this non-domestic area of the site was used
as a dance/ritual space.
Due east of Asana, towards the Titicaca Basin, there
is evidence for human body curation. Along the south-
western side of the Titicaca Basin, up the Llave River,
Mark Aldenderfers team has identied several stonepiles that contained human crania (Aldenderfer personal
communication, 1999). While their date is not conrmed
yet, Aldenderfer believes they were constructed some-
time around 2500 BC. These rock piles were created
before we have settlements in the Basin and sets the
stage for Chiripa with its rst building at 1500 BC.
Preceramic architectural evidence on the coast and in
the highlands shows that gatherings began with marking
a space for ritual performances. This architectural ex-
pression of social relations reects a loose cohesion.
Later the space is divided up through elevation. In these
contexts, at early sites like La Galgada and Aspero,there are spaces for both large and small gatherings;
-
large open spaces with no hindering divisions as well as
small, more restricted gatherings in enclosures that are
entered through a series of entrances (Moore, 1996).
These features inform us as to the size and structure of
the group that congregated (Moore, 1996). This sacred
architecture was at times linked to actual bodies and/or
representations of the ancestors, like the burials at La
Galgada, the heads at Asia or the crossed hands at
Kotosh. These powerful things contained an essence that
the living desired to remember and invoke. Such con-
cepts are deeply rooted, and most probably were active
and structuring in the rst public architecture we see.
While these links to the historical beliefs about the dead
cannot be directly linked through time, there are some
continuities in the Andean tradition about ritual that
resonates with the material traits of the past.
The evidence at Chiripa
evidence highlight lineage, ancestors, and community on
the landscape. The early burials display women as cen-
tral gures. Over time the civic architecture becomes
more elaborate and segmented. At Chiripa, the burial
evidence displays a shift from walled enclosures with
below ground interment to sunken enclosures with ni-
ches, to elaborate nested chambers for curating ancestral
paraphernalia on raised mounds.
The Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP) has been
working at Chiripa since 1992 (Hastorf et al., 1992,
1996, 1998, 1999), building on the work of previous
scholars (Bennett, 1936, 1948; Browman, 1978, 1986,
1991; Cordero Mirando, n.d.; Kidder, 1956; Mohr
Chaavez, 1988; Portugal Ortz, 1992; Portugal Zamora,1940). We dene the Chiripa indigenous uorescence of
the site in three phases, Early, Middle, and Late Chiripa
(Fig. 2). These phases are dened by changes in the ce-
ramic assemblage at the site, with radiocarbon dates to
anchor the sequence in absolute time (Steadman, 1996;
312 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332The rst settled communities occurred along the Tit-
icaca lakeshore during what is called the Early Formative
Phase (also called the Initial Period), between 1500 and
800 BC (Bandy, 2001; Hastorf et al., 1999; Stanish, 1999).
It is at this time that we rst see painted and incised ce-
ramics as symbolic cultural representations enter the re-
cord with civic architecture. While a series of sites have
been studied in the region, extensive excavations from
these early phases have occurred at Chiripa on the Taraco
Peninsula in the southwestern area of the little, southern
lake (Fig. 1). I want to focus on its development up until it
is drawn into the larger peninsular polity of Sonaji,
around 250 BC (Bandy, 2001).
To illustrate how the people of Chiripa constructed
their society over this time, I will track two phenom-
enathe civic architecture and burials. Both classes ofFig. 1. The Taraco PenWhitehead, 1999b). While the Chiripa phases span when
it was one of four centers on the Taraco Peninsula, it is
during the Tiwanaku I times that a peninsula wide polity
formed with the center several kilometers to the west
from Chiripa.
Chiripa is located on a low slope o the lake plain,
facing north towards the glaciated Cordillera Blanca
mountain chain across the lake. The site sits upon three
culturally contoured terraces, rising up from the lake
(Fig. 3). These terraces were accentuated, receiving ar-
chitectural alteration throughout the sites existence. The
architectural sequence begins in the Early Chiripa phase
(15001000 BC) with a plastered surface within an en-
closing wall on the lowest terrace (in the Santiago area
of Fig. 3). In the Middle Chiripa phase an enclosure is
built on the middle terrace, reminiscent of the Santiago
plastered surface with surrounding mudbrick wall.insula study area.
-
It is during the Late Chiripa phase, spanning over
500 years, that the rst group of buildings is built on top
of a new platform mound on the middle terrace. During
the Late Chiripa Phase 1 we know that a series of stone
and mud brick rooms were built on the mound. While
we do not know their full extent, these structures could
have spanned across the whole mound top area, and
probably were laid out in a rectangular organization,
facing the lake to the north. The structures were rebuilt
several times, eventually stopping with the Late Chiripa
phase 2. At the height of Chiripas inuence, the resi-dents constructed a mound in this same spot with an
integrated group of two sets of seven structures sur-
rounding a sunken court on the top and a new sunken
enclosure was built (illustrated in Fig. 3). These struc-
tures have burials under the oors, as well as niches and
secluded chambers.
Sometime around 250 BC, the social and political
worlds of the residents of Chiripa altered. Political ex-
pansion was afoot around the lake basin. It is during
this Tiwanaku I phase that we see political consolidation
of the western peninsula (Bandy, 2001). The peninsula
shifted from a series of segmented, independent com-
munities to a centralizing inuence of one center, Kala
Uyuni, on the southwestern end of the Peninsula, called
the Taraco Peninsula Polity. This larger political entity
Fig. 3. The architectural evidence from the excavations at Chiripa. Th
site datum.
Fig. 2. The temporal phases at the site of Chiripa and the
Taraco Peninsula.
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 313e site grid coordinates position the excavation units to the main
-
Tiwanaku periods. The likelihood is that simple organic
structures were constructed out of mudbrick with stone
foundations, or constructed of sod and reeds (wattle and
daub) and that these small, humble structures were then
covered up with domestic midden when they were
abandoned.
The Early Chiripa period
Several areas of the site have Early Chiripa phase
evidence (Fig. 4). The densest use is recorded in 1m of
Early Chiripa domestic material deposited on sterile in
the Santiago area. On top of these midden layers is a
series of white and yellow plaster surfaces laid down
within a mudbrick wall. Across this plastered and fairly
clean surface were placed at least six cobbled and un-
lined interment burial pits, some adjoining each other
(Alconini and Rivera, 1993; Dean and Kojan, 1999,
2001; Hastorf et al., 1992). On the uppermost terrace a
314 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332aected the ritual identity of the Chiripe~nnos, and is re-ected in new ceremonial architecture.
The Taraco Peninsula Polity was only one of several
such political entities that existed in the Titicaca Basin
during the Tiwanaku I phase. Other multi-community
polities, albeit smaller in scale, were most likely centered
at Tiwanaku itself, Kanamarka/Lakaya (Bandy, 2001, p.
196; Stanish et al., 1997), and Palermo (Stanish et al.,
1997), and potentially at Titimani (Portugal Ortz, 1988;Portugal Ortz et al., 1993) and Kallamarka (Albarricin-Jordan et al., 1993; Leemuz Aguirre and Paz Soria, 2001;Portugal Ortz and Portugal Zamora, 1977). These pop-ulation centers each contained a mound and sunken
court. Thewhole of the Titicaca Basinwas notmade up of
such multi-community polities however. A wide range of
alternative political forms existed at this time, including
non-hierarchical village systems present on theAchacachi
(Leemuz Aguirre, 2001) and the Copacabana Peninsulas.There also was the development of the much larger polity
at Pukara, that dominated much of the northern Titicaca
Basin by the end of the Tiwanaku I phase (Chaavez, 1992;Cohen, 2001; Kidder, 1948; Klarich and Craig, 2001;
Mujica, 1978; Plourde and Stanish, 2001). In this time of
political expansion, the ancestorswere harnessed to larger
supernatural powers by the burgeoning politicians. The
semi-subterranean enclosure at Tiwanaku reects this
clearly. It was constructed during the Tiwanaku III phase
(Kidder, 1956; Ponce-Sangines, 1975). The stone faced
walls were lined with carved tenon heads. These heads
were most likely the enqaychus of the local ancestors of all
lineages drawn into the growing Tiwanaku sphere. Here,
we see the essences of the ancestors brought tooneplace to
be propitiated, honored, and controlled at one time. Such
was the path to political power that the Chiripe~nnos, theKala Uyuni~nnos and the Tiwanakota in turn used to greateect, as the spiritual world of ancestral power was
harnessed in the political power over the living.
Our recent work has uncovered a total of 12 Chiripa-
phase burials in o the mound pits (Blom and Bandy,
1999; Hastorf, 1999). The earlier excavations by Ben-
nett, Kidder, and Portugal found a total of 34 burials in
the Late Chiripa mound (Bennett, 1936; Kidder, 1956).
Theirs were all in burial pits, with no visible evidence in
any of the niches or bins, unlike the skeletal evidence
that has been found at Pukara in both Pre-Pukara (BG
sector) and Pukara (BB) phase ceremonial enclosures
(Chaavez, 1992; Kidder, 1948; Mohr Chaavez, 1988;Wheeler and Mujica, 1981).
We have uncovered little primary evidence for do-
mestic architecture but layers and pits of domestic rub-
bish. To the east of Santiago we encountered an Early
Chiripa curved domestic wall that was surrounded with
later material (Dean and Kojan, 1999). The excavated
data suggest that people resided on all three terraces
at the edges of the ceremonial architecture. Laterphases have more midden evidence, especially from theFig. 4. The extent of Early Chiripa occupation uncovered to
date. The large central cloud is from our systematic surface
collections. The smaller zones are excavations. The site grid
coordinates position the excavation units to the main sitedatum.
-
pit lled with Early Chiripa midden has also been lo-
cated (Paz Soria, 1996, 1999). We also have a locus of
early use marked by the surface ceramics. These units
Fig. 5. Plastered oors in the Santiago area. The light gray is
the preserved remains of the plastered oor. The dark gray are
the burial pits. The black is the mudbrick wall traces.
Fig. 6. Two Early Chiripa cooking vessels form burial locus
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 315are dated by their associated ceramics and absolute
carbon dates (Steadman, 1999; Steadman and Hastorf,
2001; Whitehead, 1999b).
The deposition history tells us that this plastered area
was constructed towards the end of this 500 year se-
quence. Two of the six pits have multiple bodies. These
multiple burials include one wrapped adult woman at
the base of the pit, with additional bodies added later,
evidenced by their position and their disarticulation
(Dean and Kojan, 1996, 1999; loci 1404 and 1236/7).
The accompanying bones are of dierent ages, but most
are children. The relatively complete articulated female
in locus 1404 is accompanied by several adult crania
(possibly female, Blom, personal communication, 1999),
as well as a secondary burial of a child (Blom and
Bandy, 1999, appendix 5). This female received a whole
ceramic bowl plus a stone tablet in her grave. We have
no visible evidence to clarify if it was used for snu and/
or paint. The female also had beautiful blue sodolite
beads around her neck. The accompanying crania and
children are more likely to be oerings rather than a
family burial. The second multiple burial, loci 1236/1237
contained evidence for four interments in a cobble-lined
pit. The primary burial in the tomb again was a 4455-
year-old woman, wrapped, exed, and lying on her left
side. She too received sodolite beads, one mano and two
basal grinding stones, with the more worn basal stone
placed over her head. On top of her lay a foetus, one 2
4-year-old and an older person (Blom and Bandy, 1999,
appendix 5). These additional bodies might have been
later oerings, along similar lines of the capacocha In-
kaic ritual. Both of these burials suggest that the origi-
nal, wrapped person was remembered through receiving
oerings over time. This is our rst evidence for the
lineage-ancestral focus around the females.
Three of the four single burials contained juveniles
(Fig. 5). One well-wrapped 610-year-old had several
strings of lapis lazuli and sodolite beads (locus 871). The
most elaborate of these interments, was a 12-year-old
(Blom and Bandy, 1999), virtually an adult in that cul-
ture (loci 565 and 2055). This youth had very worn teeth
suggesting much work, processing reeds or hides. The
interred also had two manos, bone tools, and an ac-
companying raptor. This burials importance is reectedalso in the adjoining white plaster lined chamber con-
taining two lovely cooking vessels. One is a small family
sized cooking vessel and the other a larger supra-familial
cooking pot1 (Fig. 6). This person received not only
special animals to accompany it, but also a second small
1 We hope to run a DNA sample on this person to learn if it
is a female or male. I predict that it is female, based on the toothwear and accompanying artifacts. 565/2055. The larger cooking pot is unusually large.
-
constructed on the peninsula, and by several absolute
dates (Hastorf, 1999; Steadman, 1999; Whitehead,
1999b). We have uncovered two architectural features
built between 1000 and 800 BC, a sunken enclosure and
316 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332chamber with cooking vessels. Such bi-cameral tombs
are common later on the Peninsula (Janusek, 1999;
personal communication, 2001). The nal unlined burial
pit contained one male adult, 2535 years old, no of-
ferings have preserved with him (L 1404).
All articulated burials were exed andwrapped in reed
mats. Most importantly, the two multiple burials each
contained one intact body and several secondary, partial
burials above or next to the main skeleton. This deposi-
tional pattern suggests that the burials were periodically
reopened to attend to the bodies andmake oerings. Both
of thesemultiple burials focus on an adult female who had
sodolite beads and worn grinding or pallet stones as of-
ferings. Two also contained whole bowls, the only com-
plete bowls in any of the Chiripa phase burials we
excavated (L. Steadman, per. comm., 1999). Perhaps not
what we normally think of as elders today, the two single
juveniles seem to have been treated with as much rever-
ence as the elder women encountered in the burials sug-
gesting that they were considered adults in their
community. This area was not a community cemetery but
rather a place for honoring certain individuals.
The data we have suggest that the early residents of
Chiripa and others on the Taraco Peninsula began to hold
periodic gatherings surrounding some of the female dead.
During these rituals, these pits would have been reopened
to feed and tend the dead, as we see with the earlier
Chinchorro burials (Arriaza, 1996). The ceramics asso-
ciated with the plaster surfaces and the burials are pre-
dominantly serving vessels, mainly bowls and small jars,
such as would be used in public ritual consumption or
feasting, dierent from the mixed assemblage of cooking
and serving wares from the middens (Steadman and
Hastorf, 2001).
Very few people were actually buried in this enclosure,
suggesting that these few were designated as ancestors.
This is not the same veneration that we see in the later
adult male chullpas, for a start this is curation with a
distinctly female focus. While it is almost a clichee to notethat females often are associated with propagation and
fertility, this early burial evidence does suggest that the
lineages that were rst memorialized on the Taraco
landscape were maternal. These central bodies are the
strongest indicators of the use of the female line in this
initial social consolidation, associated with increased se-
dentism and territoriality on the Peninsula. It is possible
to suggest that females were the initial focus of Titicaca
ancestor veneration, a precursor of the female super nat-
urals to come with the stone representations in the Late
Chiripa times (Lyon, 1979). By the Tiwanaku imperial
times, the veneration has shifted over to the males.
The Middle Chiripa period
The Middle Chiripa phase is identied by a change inceramic style, the rst semi-subterranean enclosurea walled enclosure. One semi-subterranean enclosure
was constructed in the Santiago area (Fig. 7). Associated
with the plastered surface to the east. This plastered area
received at least four Middle Chiripa multiple and single
burials. We have also identied a second enclosure that
is now mainly under the mound on the middle terrace
(Whitehead, 1999d).
The sunken court adjoining the previously demar-
cated enclosure suggests that the residents were experi-
menting with new forms of social interactions and
rituals.2 The form and frequency of red ceramics ex-
panded along with their surface decoration (Steadman,
1999). This was a time of relatively rapid social change,
albeit at a small scale in a modest population. The
density of people on the Peninsula, while substantial
enough to have regularly spaced communities through-
out had not as yet pressured the social environment
enough to warrant major societal shifts in political or-
ganization (Bandy, 2001). That comes later. At this time
we see an interest in accentuating social cohesion with
more elaborate ritual participation. Renewal of collec-
tive memory through ceremony could build lineage co-
hesion as well as become a locus for maneuvering
political claims in the descent groups (Dillehay, 1990;
Hendon, 2000).
The Santiago area continues to be a focus for ritual
activities involving communion with the dead. More
lenses of white plaster surfaces were laid down in this
eastern area. These surfaces had some evidence of food
preparation, with ashy pits of sh and meat (Dean and
Kojan, 1999; Moore and Hastorf, 2000). These fairly
clean lenses reect preparation and consumption rather
than production or processing. The three burials asso-
ciated with this surface are all in unlined pits (Fig. 7).
One, locus 789 is a multiple burial, in this case centered
on a male individual of 3555 years of age (Blom and
Bandy, 1999, appendix 5). The oering of a 0.71.3-
year-old infant is suggested by its crania placed inside a
large, sooted cooking pot (Steadman and Hastorf,
2001). The second burial, loci 761/768 is an adult female,
aged between 50 and 80 years old in a south facing,
exed position (Blom and Bandy, 1999). She had local
style cranial deformation, determined by Deborah Blom
who has studied the southcentral Andean head treat-
ments. This elder female was wrapped in a reed mat and
accompanied by three worn grinding stones, one mano,
three duck crania, and a whole cooking pot. As in the
2 While we have no evidence for it, there might have been an
earlier, smaller sunken enclosure where the Middle Chiripa one
was placed, which would have been completely destroyed in therebuilding.
-
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 317Early Chiripa phase burials, this well-used cooking pot
continues the association of feeding with the ancestors.
The third burial (locus 816) was a single adult, only
partially exposed and therefore its sex was not deter-
mined (Hastorf et al., 1992).
The Choquehuanca semi-subterranean sunken en-
closure built in the western part of this area measures
14 13m and forms a trapezoid (Fig. 7). The founda-tion for the enclosure was cut through the Early Chiripa
layers down to sterile. Rounded river pebbles were ini-
tially laid down (Hastorf et al., 1992; Whitehead,
1999d). The walls were built of river cobbles with gray
plastered mud, smoothed, and painted red and yellow.
While most of the walls have been destroyed down to
one or two courses, the portion seen in Fig. 8 demon-
strates that it was originally six courses tall. A ll layer
of gray clay was placed throughout the interior and
covered by a very ne yellow plaster. A thin use surface
on top of this is evident only microscopically. Micro-
morphological analysis indicates that this surface
was not heavily used, but did have water percolation. In
Fig. 7. The Choquehuanca sunken enclosure. The Middle Chiripa bu
excavation units to the main site datum point.other words, it was exposed to the elements and without
a roof. From the one sediment block studied, there is no
evidence of burning or res on the surface (Goodman,
1999; Wendy Matthews personal communication, 1997).
The ceramics on the Choquehuanca enclosure oor re-
ect a narrow range of activities. The predominance of
small jars and bowls, more common here than elsewhere
at the site at this time suggests a focus on food con-
sumption, including one special ware that suggests chi-
cha beer (Steadman personal communication, 2000;
Steadman and Hastorf, 2001). The oor surface was
covered over quite rapidly with Late Chiripa midden.
The evidence suggests that food was prepared in the
upper enclosure for presentation and consumption in the
sunken space, depicting a more formal separation of
activities in this phase.
Important in the history of ancestral worship on the
Taraco Peninsula is the identication of a niche, about
90 cm in length, located on the eastern side of this
enclosure (Fig. 9). This niche can be compared to the
later niches in the sunken enclosures at Pukara, where
rial pits are shaded gray. The site grid coordinates position the
-
318 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332Kidder found a human mandible (Chaavez, 1992; MohrChaavez, 1988). Another example of niches for the deadand related icons was also uncovered at Pukara, in the
small niches of a pre-Pukara rectangular structure in
sector BG. While two of the niches near the door were
empty, the other two on the opposite wall held a
painted stone head in one and a stone human gure in
the second (Wheeler and Mujica, 1981, p. 29). We can
also refer to the ve more humble but earlier niches
found in the Formative structure 3-A at La Barca to
the south (Rose, 2001). Two of these niches have
human burials in them.
Fig. 9. The niche along the eastern wall of the Choquehuanc
Fig. 8. Choquehuanca wall plaster, seen on the lower portion oIf we assume that the residents of Chiripa periodi-
cally placed signicant items in this niche, like people
did slightly later at Pukara, we can suggest that this
Choquehuanca niche is the rst evidence of ancestral
presentation at Chiripa, dating to between 1000 and 800
BC. The placement of a body in a niche can be seen as
intermediary between the multiple burials pits of the
Early Chiripa phase and the entirely above ground
burial-chambers of the Upper Houses in the Late
Chiripa phase 2.
Upslope on the middle terrace, later covered by the
platform mound, we found traces of a large enclosure,
a enclosure. The stick in the photograph is 20 cm long.
f the stonewall. The stick in the photograph is 50 cm long.
-
sitting directly upon leveled Early Chiripa midden
(Fig. 10). Only one corner of the wall has been exposed,
an L-shaped portion of a large trapezoidal enclosure, of
at least 12 5m (Whitehead, 1999a). This wall was builtof in situ 70 30 cm red pillow mud bricks. The innerwall surface was washed with mud, having no sign of
colored plaster (Whitehead, 1999a). A scattering of an-
imal bone, lithic tools and ceramic fragments were em-
bedded in the surface.
Before 800 BC we have evidence for at least two civic
areas that reect the ceremonies at Chiripa. Not only are
there multiple burials in an enclosed sacred space, it is
associated with a formal gathering place. While we do
not know what was kept in the niche, there is evidence in
the Andes for their use in ancestral presentation. The
large middle terrace enclosure was another ceremonial
gathering area. The architectural evidence illustrates the
increasing concern with performance space for gather-
ings of up to 50 people at a time (population estimate
using 3.6m2/person from Moore, 1996, p. 149). These
ceremonies, perhaps with processions and certainly with
feasting, would cement the social group, rearming
lineage if not community identity. This dual ritual space
of platform and sunken enclosure is the beginning of a
trend that continues for two thousand years, until the
end of the Middle Horizon (Kolata, 1993; Stanish,
1997).
The Late Chiripa period
Between 800 and 250 BC, Chiripa grew to 7.5 ha
(Bandy, 1999). This was a dynamic time with an accel-
erated elaboration of the ceremonial precincts. Karen
Mohr (1966), who completed an MA thesis on Kiddersexcavated ceramics separated the upper and the lower
mound levels using ceramic style. These data, along with
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 319Fig. 10. The Middle Chiripa enclosure excavation on the middle terrace.
-
a series of absolute dates both on and o the mound,
direct us to the two phases in this period, named the
Lower and Upper Houses by Bennett. At this point we
feel secure that the two phases on the mound do repre-
sent a scalar shift in social cohesion, and this shift is
visible both stratigraphically and absolutely.
We know of at least three new precincts from this
time, a sunken enclosure at Llusco on the uppermost
terrace, the Quispe enclosure and the canal at Alejo,
both on the lowest terrace (Fig. 3). The carbon assays
suggest that Llusco was built between 800 and 750 BC,
contemporaneous with the Lower Houses (Whitehead,
1999b). The Quispe enclosure was in use later in phase 2,
around 390 BC, when the Upper Houses were built
(University of Arizona AMS Facility, 2002).
Phase 1
The early Llusco trapezoid enclosure (800750 BC),
13 11m, running northsouth,could comfortably holdaround 40 people (Fig. 11; Hastorf et al., 1992; Paz,
1996; population estimate using 3.6m2/person from
Moore, 1996, p. 149). While there is midden material
deposited on the oor, the evidence suggests non-do-
mestic use. The structure was not roofed. A clay base
was laid down after the stone foundation stones were
packed into the sloping U shaped trenches cut into
sterile soil. On top of this ll, there was a white plas-
tered oor that is now only partially preserved (the
shaded area on Fig. 11). The few artifacts that were
found sitting on the surface suggest ritual and food
consumption activities. Decorated ceramics were the
most common, including a nice fragment of a trumpet
with mottled camelid heads (Steadman, 1999, Fig. 27d).
Trumpets are considered to have been blown in cere-
monies, like the large Strombus shells portrayed in
Moche iconography and found at the Formative (Early
Horizon) site Chavn de Huantar (Lumbreras, 1989).Such a trumpet would have called people, both alive
and dead to the ceremony designating ritual time as
well as space. Fragments of braziers (incense burners)
were uncovered on the oor, often used to cleanse as
well as call the deities with the smoke (Groom, 1981).
Cooking and food presentation vessels suggest feasting
(Steadman, 1999).
. Som
320 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332Fig. 11. The Late Chiripa phase 1 Llusco enclosure foundationcanal extending out from the northwest corner.e foundation rock is present along the northern wall. Note the
-
The stone lined canal in the northwest corner of this
structure is only 24 cm wide and would not have moved
much water (Fig. 11). Rituals surrounding water
movement in canals are common in the Andes, enacted
to bring the rains at the beginning of the planting season
(Sikkink, 1997). The sound of water has been noted as
important in rituals at sites like the contemporaneous
Chavn de Huantar, where there is an elaborate undermound canal associated with the older temple area
(Lumbreras, 1989). Evidence of ritual water movement
is also present at Tiwanaku. Both of the major mounds,
Akapana and Pumapunku have large, well constructed
canals that move water only a short way down the
mounds, while creating a rumbling sound from within.
Themiddle terracewas redesigned around 800BCwith
the building of a raised platform. The carbon assays date
this Lower House level to 900600 BC (Whitehead,
1999b). The construction began with a pit oering of an
adult with a foetus and a pregnant camelid, in a pit lled
with ash and carbon, burnt oerings (locus 3511). The
human was buried face down with its head removed from
its spine. The llama was not butchered or consumed, but
sacriced whole. On the platform a series of stone and
mudbrick structures were built in two building sequences,
with three structures superimposed in the northern area
and two superimposed structures in the southern area
(Fig. 12, ASD 13, 14, and 15; Bandy, 1996; Bennett, 1936;
ne water laid lenses external to these structures, dem-
onstrating that there was some distance between these
buildings (Goodman, 1999).
In the northern group, the cobble walls and oors
were covered with multiple layers of a light-yellow
plaster. These structures are small, being only 2.5m
across holding only 35 people at any one time. Several
small hearths were found on these oors. Some of these
small ephemeral hearths were used for food preparation
while others received oerings for burning, including a
range of wild non-food taxa (Moore and Hastorf, 2000).
There was a closing ceremony with each room renova-
tion. After a thin cap of midden ll or sterile sand was
laid down, a re was kindled across the surface with
wood and straw. This re evidence is present on top of
the ll in at least six of the eight oors in the sequence.
The rst Lower House structure was constructed around
600 BC, and the last was abandoned by 400 BC
(Whitehead, 1999b). Bandy notes that if we divide the
200 years of use by the eight oors, we nd that there
was about 25 years of use for each oor, equal to about
generational replenishment (1999b).
Further south two superimposed structures were also
uncovered. These had more sturdy double coursed walls
and were not plastered. The lower structures that Coe
excavated in 1955 on the northwest corner of the mound
display yet a third type of construction. These structures
ures,
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 321CorderoMirando, n.d.; Kidder, 1956). There is a series of
Fig. 12. The Prole of Mound 1-A excavations. ASDs are struct
between D-52 and D-62.have many round river cobbles embedded in a clay
Ds refer to stratigraphic units. Note the sequence of thin oors
-
322 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332matrix (Kidder, 1956, Fig. 14). While the architecture
suggests a set of buildings on one platform, the buildings
were not in the same style nor were they all rebuilt si-
multaneously. This separate construction is similar to
the early levels at Kotosh (Izumi and Terada, 1972).
Despite this fairly independent construction style, their
angle of orientation and placement, along the sides and
at the corners of the platform suggest that these lower
structures were generally oriented in a ring around a
sunken enclosure. Browman calculated a central sunken
enclosure encircled by these structures, based on the
excavation of an interior test pit (1978). These rooms
around a court could have been for small, separate
lineage rituals, suggested by the small oertory res.
This standing architecture, replacing the pit tombs as the
lineage memorial, would have helped make the dead
visible on the landscape (McAnany, 1998).
Beck (n.d.) has recently excavated a Late Chiripa
phase 1 site, Alta Pukara, 4 km to the east of Chiripa.
The ceramics, architectural attributes and absolute dates
determine that these are contemporaneous with the Late
Chiripa 1, ranging between 790 and 450 BC (Beck,
personal communication, 2002). That ceremonial sector
is a small platform with two rectangular rooms, one
facing east and one west. These structures, most similar
to the southern Lower House Chiripa architectural style,
suggest a similar community ritual coordination oper-
ating, all be it on a much smaller scale than at Chiripa.
The Chiripa mound architecture reects a new two-
tiered level of lineage ritual ceremonialism, moving away
from the more collective nature of one enclosure
(Moore, 1996). This evidence implies a segmented or-
ganization of ritual space, with the dierent lineages
having discrete, private chambers. It further reects a
dierence of knowledge and access within the lineages
not between them, as all of the rooms are more or less
the same. The clean plastered oors with their lack of
domestic evidence suggests periodic ritual use. The ar-
chitecture implies that some items were curated above
ground, as with the earlier Choquehuanca niche. These
buildings could hold only a small number of people at a
time. Did the whole lineage meet together in the inner
courtyard? Llusco provides us with contemporaneous
evidence for larger ritual performances, perhaps even
receiving processions from the mound. We still do not
know if Llusco was only for one lineage group, was it
used serially by the dierent lineages, or used only be-
fore the Lower House platform mound was completed?
Phase 2
Around 400 BC this architectural trajectory becomes
more formalized. The mound was renovated, a new
enclosure was built on the lowest terrace. The Quispe
enclosure on the lowest terrace also dates to 390 BC,
initiated in this new phase of building and ritualelaboration (Paz Soria, 1999). A new addition to thisarchitectural style is an internal chamber, approximately
2m in size (Fig. 13). While now melted, the mud wallsprobably originally formed an inner compartment for
we can see the corners in the slump (Roddick, 2002).
Although the gray clay base was trampled and exposed,
it was homogeneous and bioturbated, suggesting that it
was unroofed and not heavily used (Goodman, personal
communication, 2001). On the oor surface, Paz Soria
found quite dense material, including ceramics, food
remains, bone tools, and lithics. There were polychrome
incised ceramics reecting ceremonial presentation and
evidence for food presentation in the enclosure. In the
inner chamber stone working tools and exotic turquoise
clustered, suggesting that long distance wealth items
were curated and processed there.
Directly to the east of Quispe, a well-formed drainage
canal that slopes down at least 7m was found in the
Alejo sector (Paz Soria, 1999; Fig. 14). At the beginning
of the canal there is a large worn out grinding slab
through which the water entered the canal. We found no
evidence for a preserved enclosure associated with the
canal. Similar subterranean canals exit in the ceremonial
precinct of Tiwanaku. This area extends the ritual pre-
cinct across the eastern part of the lower terrace in this
Late Chiripa phase.
At the same time as the Quispe enclosure was in use,
the people of Chiripa rebuilt the mound in a uniform,
coordinated manner, increasing the sense of hierarchy. It
was in use between 400 and 250 BC, contemporaneous
with the Titicaca Basins Yayamama Religious Tradition(Mohr Chaavez, 1988). Based on recent Chiripa moundexcavations, it is now clear there were two openings, one
to the north, down slope, and one to the south, upslope
(as Bennett originally thought) with seven structures on
each side (Fig. 3). The 14 coordinated, rooms are uni-
form in construction style, some sharing outer walls. The
rooms encircle a large 25m wide sunken enclosure, lar-
ger than all other recorded sunken enclosures at the time
(Moore, 1996, p. 148). This area could have held about
200 (population estimate using 3.6m2/person from
Moore, 1996, p. 149), more than what the 14 rooms
could hold. Each room was larger than the earlier
structures, measuring on average 8 5m. More elabo-rate as well, these structures had nine interior bins,
making each interior space only about 6 3m (Fig. 15).The oors and cobbled walls were plastered with several
colors. Unlike the earlier level however, these structures
were not renovated or rebuilt throughout their use. Gi-
ven that they were built as one, their architecture reects
how the participating groups planned and worked to-
gether in this central construction.
Their conception and use of ritual space is clear, with
some of it designated for communal activities in the
center, with the smaller rooms for more secretive activ-
ities. Like the previous phase these data strongly suggesta two-tiered level of ritual activity at Chiripa. Further
-
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 323evidence of a shift from collectivity to selective control
at Chiripa is seen in the rooms entrances. These struc-tures have doorways with slots for sliding woven mat (or
Fig. 13. The Late Chiripa Quispe enclosureless likely wood) doors. This sealing o entrances is
unusual in the Andes. This could be to keep people out,
restricting who could enter. Likewise, it also could be to
with canal extending to the northwest.
-
324 C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332keep those inside in, reminiscent of subterranean tombs.
These entrances reect a social control as well as a sa-
cred hierarchy. This size dierence between the small
rooms and the mound courtyard supports the notion of
inequality in access to the memorials. There were those
who could go into the rooms and be with the most sa-
cred, but the majority participated or watched in the
plaza, or perhaps even o the mound.
Niches are regularly placed throughout each room,
like the Kotosh and La Galgada rooms (Fig. 15). Dif-
ferent from these sites are the well-formed antechambers
(bins) with constricted openings at Chiripa. Archival
photographs from Kidders excavations illustrate thatthese openings were restricted not only by raised lips but
also by at stone slabs on the top, making them almost
impossible for an adult to enter without some disman-
tling (Kidder, 1956, Fig. 15). These basal ledges were not
worn, suggesting what was kept inside tended to remain
there. These above ground chambers, like other small,
dark places, could have held wrapped mummy bundles.
The niches could have held small, carved stones like in
the Pre-Pukara phase niches at Pukara. Such
storage would allow for the smaller sacred items to
be taken out periodically, similar to the later rooms
Fig. 14. The Alejo Late Chiripa canal. Scale is 1m long.and niches at many of the Inka sites like Coricancha or
Machu Picchu.
Six otation samples analyzed from a chamber in
house 5 indicate that they had sparse charred plants
relative to the middens, but included tubers, Chenopo-
dium quinoa, and wild seeds (Whitehead, 1999c). None
of the taxa were in dense enough quantities to be the
remains of burnt food storage but could have been burnt
oerings that are regularly burned in ceremonies today,
or simply be the remnants of the closing res. Kidder
reported that at least three of the structures were burnt
at the end of this phase. Perhaps, like the earlier mound
structures, these rooms were purposefully burned before
they were closed for the next ceremonial construction.
While we do not have any direct material evidence for
mallki storage in these antechambers, many lines of ev-
idence suggest that these were above ground chambers
for the sacred. As Julia Hendon notes in Mesoamerica:
these rooms combined the material with the moral in a
specic and highly signicant place (2000, p. 47).
Thirty-four Late Chiripa burials have been excavated
from sub-oor pits (Bennett, 1936, 1948; Kidder, 1956;
Portugal Ortz, 1992; Portugal Ortz, 1992; PortugalZamora, 1940). Two of the burials excavated by Bennett
were associated with the closing of the lower structures
(CH-H2-C and CH-H2-A in Fig. 15). Bennett excavated
17 Upper House burials (12 complete and 5 fragmentary,
Fig. 15). Kidders team excavated seven sub-oor UpperHouse burials and Portugal Zamora unearthed 10 buri-
als. Their reports provide data from three of the Upper
Houses. Each house had at least ve burial pits. Some of
these were multiple body burials with elaborate and ex-
otic goods, including one double adult burial under
House C (Portugal Zamora, 1940). Most pits were un-
lined. Some pits held only crania. Some of the bodies
received quite elaborate grave goods, including golden
plaques, copper, beads, and decorated Late Chiripa
vessels. Bennett noted straw lined graves on the
mound, which was probably the reed wrapping of the
bodies, as noted in the Early and Middle Chiripa burials.
Without secure sexing I cannot say if these were female
focused burials or not. The bodies were placed near the
structure entrances and in the corners of the inner rooms.
There is no evidence that bodies were buried beneath the
bin chambers. Given that the rooms were probably in use
for over 100 years (400250 BC), the multiple burials and
disturbed bones suggest that the pits were reopened pe-
riodically to add oerings. Several of these burials had
extra crania. Contemporaneous cranial oerings have
also been found on the Chilean coast in a Formative Alto
Ramirez site in the Azapa Valley, a continuation of the
Chinchorro tradition (Rivera, 1976). This phase ends
around 250 BC when the central enclosure was
expanded, but the encircling separate rooms for the
dierent lineages were not rebuilt. Now there is only awell-formed stone lined sunken enclosure.
-
C.A. Hastorf / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2003) 305332 325There was at least one sunken enclosure and a plat-
form mound in each Late Chiripa sub-phase. There is an
architectural precedent for ritual precincts to have sun-
ken enclosures and mounds, the earlier coastal sites of
Aspero and Huaynunaa have them, as do the later centersin the Tiwanaku phases in the Titicaca Basin (Kolata,
1993; Stanish, 1997; Wheeler and Mujica, 1981). This
pattern suggests a tiered set of rituals that build from
small family or elder gatherings in the inner chambers
with iconic memorials, on up to large community events
that could be seen if not joined. This provides us insight
into the form of socialization at least some in the com-
munity were envisioning, stressing a closed lineage
through the small memorials, while also desiring larger
group solidarity with the larger events.
Iconography at Chiripa
Accompanying this architectural elaboration in
the Late Chiripa phase 1, Browman (1972), Cordero
Fig. 15. Upper House 2 on the Chiripa mound with the suboor buriaMiranda (1977), and Ponce-Sangines (1990) note that
stone carvings began to enter these ceremonial precincts.
These stone carvings are most dense aroun