The Formative Period in the Titicaca Basin

Chapter
28
The Formative Period
in the Titicaca Basin
CHRISTINE A. HASTORF
INTRODUCTION
The Titicaca basin sits at the northern end of the expansive altiplano high plains, straddling
the highland border of modern Peru and Bolivia. The grasslands are excellent for herding
and are also arable along the lakeshore, being a center of tuber production and the font of
the domestic Chenopodium and the potato. The lake is full of edible fish as well as having a
range of useful waterweeds and reeds along the lakeshore. Early human evidence suggests
foraging, hunting, fishing, and birding were all productive subsistence strategies. When
these activities began in the area is not firmly known, but there are solid dates for foragers
by 4000 BC.
At around 1500 BC archaeologists can see evidence of the earliest settlements, small
ceremonial centers, and the onset of territoriality. The term Formative is used to encompass
these changes in lifeways from the preceding foraging era. The Formative Period [Note 1] (1500
BC-AD 475) is defined as the time when humans began marking their landscape, creating
more permanent settlements, while they domesticated plants and animals. The Formative
Period witnessed the creation of a series of ritually charged and intensively agricultural-herding
based polities. Some consider the Formative Period a time of social stratification development,
with political spheres centered at the civic-ceremonial settlements (Stanish 2003). Others see
these long-lived centers as illustrating a strong sense of autonomy and sustainability (Hastorf
2003; Bandy 2004). The Formative Period in this part of the highlands spans almost 2,000
years, thus extending up to the early expansion of the Tiwanaku polity influence (see Chapter
37 in this volume). The end of the Late Formative is marked by the large-scale hegemonic
shift around AD 475, when Tiwanaku’s influence is evident outside of the Titicaca basin.
The 2,000-year temporal sequence of the Titicaca basin Formative Period is presented in
Table 28.1, which lists dates, local, regional, and northern phase names and changes in the
main environmental entity, the levels of Lake Titicaca.
Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell.
Springer, New York, 2008
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C.A. Hastorf
Table 28.1. Titicaca Basin Chronology (after Bandy 2004).
Calendar years
Lake Levels
S. Basin Phasing
Basin Phasing
Greater Titicaca
Rowe Chronology
1500-1000 BCE
1000-800 BCE
800-250 BCE
250 BCE-CE300
CE 300-475
CE 475-1100
CE 1100-1450
CE 1450-1540
high
low
high, low
high, low
high
high
low, high
high
Early Chiripa
Middle Chiripa
Late Chiripa
Tiw. I Qalasasaya
Tiw III Qeya
Tiwanaku IV-V
Pacajes
Pacajes-Inka
Early Formative I
Early Formative II
Middle Formative
Late Formative I
Late Formative II
Tiwanaku IV-V
Señorios
Inka
Initial Period
Early Horizon
Early Horizon
Early Intermediate
Early Intermediate
Middle Horizon
Later Intermediate
Late Horizon
Figure 28.1. Map of the Titicaca Basin with archaeological sites mentioned in text (Drawn by William
T. Whitehead)
Research on the Formative Period over the past fifty years, and especially in the past
twenty, has been extensive, informed by the work of dozens of outstanding scholars whose
publications are too numerous to cite in this brief chapter. Out of this work, we now have a
series of ceramic sequences, architectural forms and settlement patterns (Figure 28.1) that
The Formative Period in the Titicaca Basin
give a more accurate sense of the events that occurred during this dynamic time period.
In this chapter, I will concentrate on the major cultural events that recent archaeological
research is clarifying, with a focus on the Middle and Late Formative phases.
CHANGE DURING THE FORMATIVE PERIOD
Overview
As the Formative Period began the climate became progressively wetter (and perhaps
warmer), the lake level rose, and the grasslands increased, making the Titicaca basin more
hospitable and arable (Figure 28.2). Archaeologists are uncovering sites that have early
dates, especially on the west lakeshore (Cipolla 2005).
Ritual, political, and economic changes throughout the Formative sequence are seen
in settlement patterns, architectural layout, ceremonialism, feasting evidence, lithics, carved
stone imagery, ceramics, and plant and animal use. Particularly notable changes are seen
in the major shifts in emphasis of mood and iconographic image on stone and ceramics,
associated with the shifts in architectural constructions. These are the elements that define
the sub-phases in the region. The images are not literal but symbolic. Early stone images
suggest agricultural renewal and fertility, having links to water and growth in today’s altiplano symbolic world. These early agricultural fertility images are what Browman (1972)
describes as the Asiruni images of the snake, lizard, and frog. Social-political change and
polities are evident in the increased ritual elaboration in the architectural complexes and
diverse media. The material evidence of increasing integration means that there were more
people on the landscape and also that there were a series of new and different forms of
interaction. These cultural forms included more regular farming and herding, long distance trade, increasing territoriality and self identification of group, memorializing ancestors
Figure 28.2. The shore surrounding modern Lake Titicaca (photo by William T. Whitehead)
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through communal ceremonies that included food, drink, music, smoke, and processions.
Subsistence was still a healthy mix of camelid husbandry, fishing, and a range of foraging
including increasingly intensive tuber and Chenopodium collection, eventually slipping
into farming by the Late Formative (Bruno and Whitehead 2003).
Early Formative
The Early Formative (1500-800 BC) is marked by ephemeral domestic structures that
are rarely visible archaeologically. However, at small settlements along the shore of Lake
Titicaca there is the first permanent architecture in the region in the form of surface-level
and sunken enclosures (Hastorf 1999). This is the first civic architecture in the Titicaca
basin. Early ceremonial enclaves are oriented towards the high mountain peaks (Leonardo
Benetiz, personal communication, 2005).
From excavation, there is evidence of prepared surfaces within mud-brick walls over
10 m in length at a few sites. These early sites are found along the lakeshore, overlooking
the lake. Settlements were autonomous, however there was surely regular communication
between neighbors.
Chiripa has been more intensively studied for this time period and thus will be more
reported on here (Bennett 1936; Browman 1978, 1980; Chávez 1988; Hastorf 1999; Kidder 1956; Mohr 1966; Ponce1970; Portugal Ortíz 1992). In Early Formative I (1500-1000
BC) on the lowest of three hillside terraces there is an extensive plastered surface within
an adobe walled enclosure, containing multiple burial pits. The burial pits that the Taraco
Archaeological Project has opened contain multiple burials, with additional individuals
deposited with adult females (Dean and Kojan 2001; Steadman and Hastorf 2001; Hastorf
2003; Eduardo Machicado, personal communication, 2007).
There is more evidence for the next sub-phase, the Early Formative II (Middle
Chiripa, 1000-800 BC). The differences between the northern basin and the southern basin
are reflected in the artifacts, lithics, ceramics and trade items (this would change only with
the post-Formative Tiwanaku IV phase, after AD 500) (Amanda Cohen, personal communication, 2006).
Around 1000 BC the first sunken enclosures were built at the larger settlements,
becoming more common later in the Middle Formative Period(see below). They are
sunken because they were excavated into the earth, and then supported with rock walls
that are plastered and painted, blending into the landscape with a modest impact on sightlines. These enclosures gave some privacy to people participating in events within them,
although onlookers could gain a good vantage from the surrounding banks. Their early
significance is still much discussed, especially as the earth (Pachamama) has long been
seen as the source of life in the Andes. This sunken enclosure tradition was a powerful
and important form of ritually marking sacred space and territory, allowing varying sizes
of groups to “meet” with the ancestors. As such, sunken enclosures are still used today
by communities, as seen on the island of Amantaní in Lake Titicaca (Niles 1987b; Spahni
1971). Such continuities in the Titicaca basin support assumptions about the importance
of chthonic power, fertility, and land claims through ancestral propitiation. These semisubterranean edifices were built until 100 BC. There is one such enclosure recorded at
Chiripa, dating to the Early Formative II phase (Choquehuanca), located on the first terrace above the lake. These trapezoidal sunken enclosures measure around 14 m × 11 m,
widening eastward (Whitehead 1999; Hastorf 1999, 2003). Most of these date to the
following phase.
The Formative Period in the Titicaca Basin
Middle Formative
The Middle Formative (800-250 BC) is when we see clusters of settlements for the first
time. There are at least eight documented regional settlement clusters around the lake with
civic-ceremonial architecture dating to this phase. The ceremonial architecture consists of
stepped platform mounds, often in conjunction with the sunken enclosures. Stanish (1994)
speaks of a Middle Formative Sunken Court Tradition because each of the larger sites in
this time period has a sunken court, later placed next to raised platform mounds.
The site clusters suggest discrete self-identifying polities, visible archaeologically
with their centrifugal placement, architecture, artifact types and iconography. The political
world is comprised of loosely woven, ritually driven lineage alliances, covering the landscape in sedentary settlements, ceremonial centers, alignments and agricultural fields. The
architecture suggests a focus on chthonic rituals, with the ceremonies gravitating around
special burials. These ceremonial places are usually oriented towards mountain peaks, the
font of water and where the ancestors dwell.
The Middle Formative is most clearly identified with sites like Chiripa, Incatunuhuiri, Qaluyu, Ch’isi, and Sillumocco-Huaquina. These Titicaca centers were located in the
most temperate climatic zones of the region along the lakeshore, often oriented to the
mountain peaks. Qaluyu is an exception, located inland along the Pukara River (Figure 28.1).
These settlements grew in local influence with increased exchange and political competition through this time period.
The Late Chiripa phase, also called the Middle Formative (800-250 BC), has yielded
more ceremonial construction. The archaeological data inform us that these were a dynamic
and exciting 500 years in the basin. The lake rose at the beginning of this phase, providing lush marshes around the shoreline. Then in late Middle Formative times, the lake level
dropped, expanding the pampa, providing more grazing land—if less accessible fishing.
During this time settlement clusters became ubiquitous around the basin (Stanish 2003;
Hastorf 2005). While there are basin-wide similarities, each center displays slightly different stylistic features, most clearly seen in the recent detailed ceramic studies by Steadman
at Camata (1995) and Chiripa (1999) and the new material from Incatunuhuiri (Frye and
Steadman 2001). From this research, we learn that these lakeshore groups developed their
own ceramic traditions, although the northern clusters were influenced by Qaluyu/Pukara
styles and the southern settlements by the Chiripa/Taraco Peninsula styles.
The populations were denser in areas that are slightly more protected and warmer,
such as the Santiago de Huatta Peninsula and the Taraco Peninsula. It is possible that these
different alliance groups spoke different languages or dialects, for there is historic and
ethnographic evidence that there were many more languages spoken around the lake in the
past than there are today (Denise Arnold, personal communication, 1999; today Aymara
predominates; there are pockets of Quechua speakers in the north, brought in by the Incas;
the almost nonexistent Pukina language is found to the east).
Albarracin-Jordan has constructed a plausible model for local political development
in the Tiwanaku Valley (1996). He proposes a form of nested kin-based ayllus, distributed across the landscape,that developed through interactive influence during the Middle
and Late Formative (see also Platt 1986). Political leadership structures are inferred, but
some form of economic accumulation via kin-based ayllu consolidation (families linked
to territory emotionally, physically, and corporeally) grew over these 500 years. As these
self-identities developed and consolidated, built upon fertility imagery, memorialization of
ancestors and stone carvings with surreal imagery (Figure 28.3), it appears that interest in
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Figure 28.3. Middle Formative carved stone in the Pa’Ajano/Yaya Mama style. (Christine Hastorf)
exotic items also increased, entering both from the west coast, the northern and southern
mines, as well as from the eastern forests. These items included sodalite beads, copper,
arsenical bronze, salt, and warm valley plants (trees, ritually used plants and medicines).
Both Browman and Stanish have suggested that the engine for this political centralization
was through extra-basin trade (Browman 1984; Stanish 2002). Bandy and Hastorf, on the
other hand, see such increased communication as a reflection of relative peace and productivity throughout the basin, allowing for developing and elaborating ceremonies that
brought people together throughout the annual cycle. Such movements around the basin,
including pilgrimages to the centers, would naturally evolve into trips farther afield, seeking new ways to honor the dead (such as with Spondylus, vilca [Anadenanthera colubrina]
and coca [Erythroxylum coca Lam.]).
When Wendell C. Bennett published his survey of Lake Titicaca basin archaeology
in 1950, he mentioned six sites, five of which were phased in the Formative by diagnostic
The Formative Period in the Titicaca Basin
pottery. While today over a dozen sites with sunken enclosures potentially dating to this
phase have been investigated, there should be many more as yet unreported sites, especially
circling the larger centers. A Middle Formative center is defined as a site with a sunken
enclosure that also may have a raised platform mound. These centers hug the lakeshore and
often have a view of the magnificent snow-peaked mountain ranges, still important deities
today. At least by the end of this phase, the larger sites were regularly spaced around the
lakeshore in more densely populated regions like the Taraco, Copacabana, and the Huatta
peninsulas in the south as well as along larger rivers like the Pukara and the Ilave to the
north. Surveys have documented the distribution of these centers about every 6 km, with
smaller settlements in between, as shown in the work of Charles Stanish (1997) and Clark
Erickson (1996) on the western and northern shore, Eduardo Casanova (1942), Karen and
Sergio Chávez (1997) on the Copacabana Peninsula, Carlos Lémuz (2001) and José Luis
Paz Soría in the Santiago de Huatta Peninsula-Achacachi area, and Matthew Bandy (2001)
on the Taraco Peninsula. In fact, it is quite clear from these more systematic surveys that
there are quite dense settlements by this Middle Formative time. Albarracin-Jordan and
Mathews (1990) discovered clusters of sites (about four sites per cluster) dating to this
time period in the Tiwanaku Valley, containing ceramics similar to Chiripa, some 10 km
away. These archaeologists suggest that these settlements housed related kin ayllus. In fact,
Mathews (1995) has suggested that some of these Tiwanaku Valley clusters are outposts of
a Chiripa “chiefdom.” We know, now, that another Taraco Peninsula site, Kala Uyuni was
more likely to have been Tiwanaku’s early competitor (Bandy and Hastorf 2007).
Chiripa has been the center most often identified with this time period. While we
now know about other settlements, Chiripa continues to stand out, in large part because of
the extent of archaeological work that has been completed there. Bandy’s (2001) survey,
however, has turned up three other contemporaneous sites from this time period on the
Taraco Peninsula, suggesting that Chiripa was one of a set of regularly spaced centers
on the peninsula in this phase. Numerous names have been used for this socio-religious
development in the southern basin: Classic Chiripa (Bennett 1936), the Lower and Upper
House levels (Kidder 1956), Mamani (Browman 1978a, 1980, 1981), and Late Chiripa
(K. Chávez 1988; Mohr 1966; Hastorf 1999b; Hastorf et al. 1997). This Late Chiripa Phase
is further subdivided, based on architectural elaboration and absolute dating. At Chiripa,
a series of enclosures were built upon the three terraces up the hillside (e.g. Quispe and
Llusco). These trapezoidal enclosures measure approximately 13 m × 11 m, each having
a drainage canal (Hastorf 1999; Hastorf et al. 1997; Paz Soría 1999). In addition to these
early sunken courts at Chiripa, an elevated platform mound was renewed continuously on
the middle terrace throughout the Formative Period. The mound began as a ground level
enclosure in the Early Chiripa phase. Then, during early Late Chiripa times, a number of
3 m × 4 m structures were built on a low terrace, probably placed around a central enclosure.
Periodically these floors were burnt. After a sequence of ritual closures and rebuilding
events, the populace altered the architectural style and built fourteen coordinated rectangular structures that symmetrically encircle a sunken enclosure on a higher platform mound
(Figure 28.4). These structures were not rebuilt but were used for ritual storage and small
ceremonies for several centuries until around 250 BC (Hastorf 2003). After these structures
were burnt and their walls pushed inward, the platform was filled in and a series of three
yellow surfaces were laid down encircling the sunken court. Recent ceramic analysis from
these fills and floors on the mound tells us that this sequence occurred in the Late Chiripa
phase (Steadman personal communication 2007). Chiripa seemed to lose its ritual influence by the end of the Formative time, as the pull of Tiwanaku grew.
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Figure 28.4. Map of Middle Formative structures at Chiripa. (William T. Whitehead)
Turning to the northern basin, Qaluyu flourishes and expands, with architecture
shaped in the form of animals, (S. Chávez 1992; Kidder 1956). Clark Erickson (personal
communication, 1999) has reported Formative materials from the site of Pancha, on the
northwest shore of the lake. This large site has a stone-lined platform mound. It is geographically associated with raised fields. It has absolute dates ranging between 800 and 600
BC. There are iconographic influences from the south (Chiripa) in the northern settlements
during this time, as well as from the western coast. These stylistic influences are exhibited
in the lower levels of Pukara and Qaluyu (Cohen 2001). Slightly south of Qaluyu, these
sites encompass the beginning of the Cusipata phase at Pukara (K. Chávez 1977). The
Cusipata phase (500 to 20 BC) witnessed the first clear civic building at Pukara (S. Chávez
The Formative Period in the Titicaca Basin
1992; Mujica 1987; Wheeler and Mujica 1981:26–29). The sacred region at Pukara contains Qaluyu and Cusipata pottery, discovered first in the sunken enclosures (Wheeler and
Mujica 1981; K. Chávez 1977). Pukara continues on into the late Formative with increased
elaboration.
During the Middle Formative and Late Formative I times, the figures cut into stone
tend to be anthropomorphic, focused on human heads or whole bodies, often with two
sexes on the same stone, heads at either end of the body or four appendages emanating
out of one head, again symbolic for associated energies. These styles were categorized by
Karen and Sergio Chávez with the Quechua term, “Yaya-Mama” (K. Chávez 1988;
S. Chávez and K. Chávez 1975); Portugal Ortíz used the Aymara term “Pa’Ajano” (1981)
as did Browman writing “Pajano” (1972, but also see Browman 1995). These terms refer
to the more elaborate back-to-back carved stone figures of male and female images. This
group of images imbues a sense of organic union, fertility and ancestral ties, with more
emphasis on humans than in the earlier images, albeit continuing on in a surreal manner.
These images have been found within sunken enclosures and also in the later, Formative
stepped platforms (Stanish 2003).
Based on their research on the Copacabana Peninsula, Karen and Sergio Chávez
suggest that domestic houses were removed slightly from the sacred ritual core, in addition
to occurring at small farmstead settlements. They uncovered oval semi-subterranean stone
structures of about 8 m × 5 m on a terrace about 100 m from the Ch’isi semi-subterranean
enclosure, dating to 220 BC, at the end of this Middle Formative phase. While we are
unclear about the full range of activities that transpired in the domestic areas at this time,
due to little in situ excavation of domestic life, there is evidence of food preparation and
storage. The domestic rubbish pits that the Taraco Archaeological Project has excavated
show a different assemblage than those associated with the ritual areas. The domestic pits
are filled with fish, bones, charred remains, and many large and undecorated cooking pots.
The ceremonial rubbish includes more painted pottery and fewer cooking pots (Steadman
2002). Food evidence tells us that these populations were supporting themselves on local
produce and even increasing their production to host feasts that aided the more intensive
social interactions that were developing.
At this time, the southern sites tend to have more painted wares than do the northern
sites. If painted wares reflect ceremonial/sacred/ public activities, then the presence of
such painted wares supports the thesis of earlier escalation of ceremonialism in the southern basin and on the Taraco Peninsula in particular. Although we cannot determine who
controlled these feasts and ceremonies yet, we are learning more about where such events
might have taken place and what they entailed.
Late Formative (Tiwanaku I/III)
The Late Formative (250 BC-AD 475) (Tiwanaku I/III, also called the Qalasasaya and
Qeya phases) begins with a scalar change in centrifugal influence. Not only did the centers
continue to flourish as independent but interactive entities (this is best illustrated by their
divergent artifact styles: see Steadman 1995; Bandy 2003; Stanish 2003), but the local
populace gravitationally turned their attention to larger centers, as least ceremonially; there
is a consolidation of larger, multiple-community ceremonial centers. These centers gained
stylistic influence not only over the smaller centers and their populace, but clearly began to
produce ever more elaborate performances for the visitors with increasingly more powerful
imagery and ritual paraphernalia.
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The Late Formative is divided into two sub-phases, I and II (Table 28.1). The Late
Formative I (250 BC-AD 300) saw the rise and collapse of the northern center, Pukara, the
coalescing of the western Sillumocco sphere (also called the Moyopampa Complex; de la
Vega 2005), the Taraco Peninsula centralized at Kala Uyuni and Sonaje (Bandy et al. 2004;
Hastorf et al. 2005), the Santiago de Huatta Peninsula becoming one entity (Lémuz 2001),
and the coalescence of the southwestern altiplano center Khonko Wankane, in addition to the
rise of other polities around the lake shore. The most prominent of these centrifugal trajectories however was the expansion of Tiwanaku as the major center in the southern basin.
In Late Formative I, long-distance trade became more prevalent, reflected by the
artifact styles that were more broadly distributed. In addition to the intensification of trade
in the Late Formative I, agriculture and herd production also intensified.
Within Late Formative I, between 250-100 BC, political and social change escalated
throughout the basin. The climate was warming and getting wetter, the lake was rising again,
although it had been changeable throughout the Middle Formative as well. Ceremonial
settlements grew in size and architectural sophistication. Community engagement was more
materially manifest, with certain centers having increasingly elaborate architecture. These
material energies were channeled to impress locals and surrounding visitors through
refurbishing and building larger stepped platforms, covered with cut stone and containing
elaborate chambers for storing goods and ancestors. Pottery (and probably weavings) was
more elaborately made, with new imagery that was circulated around the southern Andes. The
imagery was more overtly powerful, with “power over” dominating the “power to” imagery.
The ceramic assemblage was more complex; with new forms of braziers, serving bowls and
cups suggesting more concern with feasting and presentation. Central in this elaboration of
presentation and place was the dominance of Pukara, located off the northern lakeshore. This
zone, rich in herding pasture-land, clearly was in intensive contact with the north, into the
Canis and Canchis ethnic area, on up to the Peruvian north coast (Cupisnique) as well as to
the west and the Paracas Peninsula and the Ica and Nazca valleys. Its size, images and architecture place Pukara at the center of all settlements in the northern basin.
The development of a large Pukara polity is based on the increased elaboration
of the stepped platforms, built up the hillside, with multiple sunken enclosures on the
top (Figure 28.5; K. Chávez 1988; Klarich 2004). Accompanying this larger ceremonial
form was a shift to this “power over” imagery, with the new dominance of disarticulated
human heads, bodies, males with knives and front-faced deities (S. Chávez 2002). Yet
accompanying this aggressive image is one of fecund power, seen in front faced women
holding flowers and camelids. These new images suggest an increased emphasis on status differentiation, ritual elaboration, esoteric knowledge, power over others, and identity building (Helms 1979, 1998). While we, as yet, have not documented specific images
with specific trade routes, ongoing research should inform us of such regular interaction.
It is hoped that the sources of stone hoes, food plants, wood, and hallucinogenic plants
will clarify these trade routes, including those to the east.
These Pukara images, found on ceramics and carved stone, incorporated the powerful images of a shamanistic religious cult that is generally associated with the acquisitional power gained from dead enemies, most notably seen in trophy head images on the
south coast (Proulx 1999, 2001; Silverman and Proulx 2002; S. Chávez 2002; Arnold and
Hastorf 2008). While heads had been included in the earlier Pa’Ajano images, in the Middle
Formative times illustrated in Figure 28.3, they took on a more ominous and overly powerful dimension, as the heads were now held by kneeling feline masked humans (chachapuma
images), suggesting a strong sense of unequal power over others, or at least increasingly
The Formative Period in the Titicaca Basin
Figure 28.5. View of Pukara platform, whose high retaining walls run the length of most of the picture, but have
been exposed by excavation in the center only. (photo by William H. Isbell)
powerful ritual specialists. These images, as well as the carved heads found in niches at
Pukara (Mujica and Wheeler 1981), suggest that the ritual leaders were continuing to focus
on ancestor veneration as a lynchpin to community formation.
It is increasingly clear that Tiwanaku, off the southern shore of Lake Titicaca, was
also actively building more elaborate ceremonial edifices. The site was not located up
against hills, but rather built on a flat plain. The Tiwanaku inhabitants early on built an
elaborate semi-subterranean enclosure, with many carved tenon heads embedded in its
four walls (Figure 28.6; Ponce Sanginés 1990). Recent scholars have written on this topic,
suggesting that these heads, perhaps like those found at Pukara, represented local ancestral
leaders, brought together into the greater alliance of the expanding center (Hastorf 2003;
Couture 2004). These heads are naturalistic and diverse suggesting a range of different
people [Note 2]. Thus, Tiwanaku and Pukara were both escalating their regional influence
through pomp and circumstance, ceremony and feasting, harkening back to the power of
the venerable dead. Tiwanaku residents later also joined the basins civil ceremonial forms
with a human made mountain seen in the Akapana stepped mound.
This trajectory peaked during the last 400 years of the Late Formative period
(AD 100–475), with several central sites gaining prominence over broader areas during this
time. In the northern Titicaca basin the site of Pukara had regular trading ties to the Nazca
and Cuzco valleys (Valcarcel 1935; Rowe and Brandel 1969; Mujica 1978, 1987; Wheeler
and Mujica 1981; Conklin 1983; S. Chávez 2002). In the southern basin, Tiwanaku (Tiwanaku I phase) superseded earlier centers, such as Chiripa, Kala Uyuni, Khonko Wankane
and Santiago de Huatta. By AD 300 Tiwanaku had become an active trading center to the
south into the Chilean coastal area (San Pedro de Atacama) (Rivera 1991; Rodman 1992),
perhaps shifting the balance of trade routes southward out of the basin from the previous
phase, which was oriented more to the north (Stanish 2003).
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Figure 28.6. Partial view of the semi-subterranean enclosure at Tiwanaku showing tenoned heads. (Christine
Hastorf)
This brings us to the Late Formative II phase (AD 300–475). These years witnessed
Tiwanaku becoming a more formal ritual and political center as its residents began exercising more influence not only in the south but also in the northern lake basin. With this
new level of integration came a reformulation of ceremonialism, and an ever increasingly
formal ceremonial core. Tiwanaku’s new buildings were oriented towards the sun’s movements now, no longer towards the mountains and the moon (Leonardo Benetiz personal
communication, 2005).
In the Qalasasaya phase and on into the Qeya times (AD 300–475), we begin to
see evidence for more overt political authority, with controlling civic cults built upon
the earlier religious foundations of incorporation and kin-group ancestor worship. This
authority is reflected in the architecture at the centers, but mushroomed most at Tiwanaku.
There is evidence for the intensification of several economic strategies throughout the
Late Formative phase, including intensive pampa agriculture, a strong lacustrine economy
of gathering, fishing, and herding (Erickson 1988, 1996; Graffam 1990). Once the lake
stabilized, sometime around AD 200, and the hydrology was steady (Binford and Kolata
1996; Abbott, et al. 1997), a series of intensive economic strategies were developed,
including raised fields, qochas (bofedales, artificially enlarged seasonal ponds used to
feed and water camelids; Flores Ochoa 1987), and aqueducts that channeled hillside water
for erosion control and irrigation.
It is during this time that Pukara waned, losing its trajectory of ceremonial building (Klarich 2004). Now, Tiwanaku was the largest center, with ever increasing influence
The Formative Period in the Titicaca Basin
across not only the southern basin but also the northern region. Tiwanaku was not alone,
however, as a range of well endowed centers existed to the north and south of Tiwanaku,
with elaborate images in the Tiwanaku style (Bermann 1994; John Janusek, personal communication, 2005).
Domestic architecture continues to be rarely uncovered in the basin, due to a research
focus on large architecture and the fact that these structures are ephemeral. Bermann’s
(1994) work at Lukurmata is an exception, where he uncovered rectangular houses. In
2005, John Janusek’s team exposed a sequence of small circular structures at Khonko
Wankane, providing us with a set of domestic houses (John Janusek, personal communication, 2005). These small structures contrast with the large enclosure that has also been
uncovered over the past few years of work there, associated with very elaborate and large
carved stone stelae. The Taraco Archaeological Project also has recently found one, round
domestic structure at Kala Uyuni dating to this time period, approximately 4 m wide. These
structures all provide evidence of food preparation and storage.
The Formative Period in the Titicaca basin culminates with the cultural development of the large-scale highland Tiwanaku polity with the extension of Tiwanaku’s influence outside the Titicaca basin. This entity expanded throughout the south-central region
between AD 475 and 500. By the end of the Formative, Tiwanaku dominated the region,
culminating in its regional influence.
CONCLUSION
The people who settled in the Titicaca basin gained an increasing sense of place and ownership over time. Their separate polities developed authority and identity through demarcating
and celebrating the sacred and the powerful on the landscape and the living ancestors.
Intensification occurred in all subsistence realms, especially when the lake retreated. The
landscape, architecture, and iconographic evidence of the Titicaca basin in the Formative Period
portrays a picture of increasing unification by certain population clusters that channeled
labor out of the web of nested kin/ayllu groups. The political evidence for these changes is
seen in the religious manifestations and ancestor ideologies placed in the constructed
ceremonial centers. Everything, including politics, seemed to be colored by ritual; ritual
and its associated community feasting has always been a powerful force in politics throughout
Andean prehistory (and history). Toward the end of this long sequence, the political
structures bumped up against each other, causing a general shift from interaction to
confrontation. Aggressive power became part of the iconic codes. And with this competition, came civic ceremonial elaboration that bred an increased sense of centralization,
seen at sites like Pukara and Tiwanaku, but also at Lukurmata and Khonko Wankane (the
discussion of Titicaca basin cultural development continues in Chapter 37). With evidence
for group rituals and feasting, selective access to exotic goods, and labor for constructing
stone edifices, the population was realigning itself from autonomy to hegemony, at the end
of the renaissance of sustainability and autonomy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This chapter is primarily based on recent archaeological research in
which I have been involved, for which I am very grateful to Chip Stanish, John Janusek, Matt
Bandy, Lee Steadman, Bill Whitehead, José Luis Paz and Kate Moore. The National Directorate of Archaeology in La Paz, Bolivia, especially Javier Escalante and Eduardo Pareja,
have graciously allowed archaeological research to move forward. Chip Stanish has devoted
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much time to informing me of the northern data upon which I have based much of my interpretations here. The National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society have
both funded my archaeological time in the region and for that I am especially grateful.
NOTES
1. Archaeologists working in the Titicaca basin use the Formative terminology rather than the Rowe-Menzel periods to which it would correspond (Rowe 1962; Lumbreras 1974a; Ponce Sanginés 1970, 1971, 1981: 13).
2. This is very different from the interpretation of the tenoned heads emplaced on the exterior temple walls
of Chavín de Huántar. There the heads are placed on an outer surface [exposed and visible] and are clearly
displaying transformations. At Tiwanaku the heads within an enclosure [gathered and protected] are all naturalistic and quite human (see Richard Burger’s argument in Chapter 35 in this volume).
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