Evaluation of the nature of Tiwanaku presence in the Cochabamba Valley of Bolivia : a ceramic analysis of the Pirque Alto Site (CP-11)

Abstract

Some of the most important unanswered questions about Andean prehistory center around the expansive nature of the polities that dominated the area before European contact. Tiwanaku proves to leave an especially puzzling record of how and why it established peripheral settlements in different ecological regions. Relatively little is known about the economic, political, and social relationships most of these settlements maintained with the core region. This paper seeks to address these issues as they relate to Tiwanaku settlements in the Cochabamba Valley of central Bolivia. Through the systematic analysis and comparison of decorative elements and quantities of ceramic types from different cultural periods, I have determined that there is a definite degree of interaction between the Tiwanaku core in the Titicaca Basin and the Pirque Alto site in the Cochabamba Valley.