干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

For many years, archaeologists have examined the Tiwanaku phenomenon outside the Titicaca basin. The research has been mainly focused on economical systems, and religious and ecological complementarity between centers and their periphery in the Andes. However, dominated by our conceptions of state and empire, those reconstructions are biased by an economic and iconographic deterministic point of view, in detriment of understanding the diversity of the Andean political phenomena. Here, we reconsider the relationship between Tiwanaku and San Pedro de Atacama through a new study of the classic black-polished pottery from the cemeteries of Solcor and Coyo, taking into account the foundational role assigned to this pottery type by different archaeologist to understand the influence of the Altiplano in the Atacama region. The results of this pottery analysis and our bioarchaeology data suggest a more heterogeneous and unequal social reality for San Pedro de Atacama as a consequence of their own local dynamics.