Mummies in a
New Millenium
Proceedings of the 4th World
Congress on Mummy Studies.
Nuuk, Greenland, September
4th to 10 th, 2001
Niels Lynnerup, Claus Andreasen
and Joel Berglund, editors
Greenland National Museum and Archives
and
Danish Polar Center 2003
www.uta.cl/masma/yuta
Prehistoric Burial Types, Political
Interaction and Ethnic Boundaries in the
South Central Andes
Calogero M. Santoro, Álvaro Romero and
Vivien G. Standen
Centro de lnvestigaciones del Hombre en el
Desierto, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile
We will briefly discuss the political and economic
arrangement reached by different political entities
from the coast and altiplano in the South Central An-
des, a region in western South America that encom-
passes southern Peru, northern Chile and the Boli-
vian altiplano. The first political group may corre-
spond to small-scale communities, the cole located
in the lower semitropical and arid valleys close to the
Pacific, according to historical records of the XVI-
XVIII century A.D. The other groups correspond to
larger scale societies, such as the caranga, with head-
quarters in the high Andean plateau, or the altiplano
in the region occupied today by Bolivia (1) (fig. 1).
The time span for this study is from the Xlth to the
XVlth century A.D. just few centuries before the Eu-
ropean invasion to the Americas.
We will present prehistoric archaeological data to
discuss the idea that these policies sanctioned and re-
duced the tension involved in the political and eco-
nomic interaction by using conspicuous funerary
structures made out of adobe bricks, known as chull-
pa, a typical monumental funerary and ceremonial
feature in the altiplanic region (2). Ritualization of
social activities it is still a common issue among
 Figure 1. Valleys of Arica region in the Shouth Central Andes, showing Molle Pampa and Caillama sites.
nowadays indigenous Andean people, who do no
conceive economic and social activities without a cer-
emonial activity (3). In our prehistoric case, we are
dealing with a geopolitical expansion of Andean
groups that defended their rights in foreign territo-
ries by using this ideological or religious symbol:a
The Chullpas, whose scale and visibility impress in
the landscape, are currently known for their funerary
function. We propose that chullpas served also as
ideological features to secure the territorial expan-
sion of altiplanic people. In this way, the attempts to
have economic control over the territories was sup
ported by a process of sacralization of the landscape.
This is part of an ongoing project that have ana-
lyzed different lines of evidence such as settlement
patterns, pottery, chemical dietary analyses of hu-
man bones, coprolite analyses, and rock art studies in
more than 100 archaeological sites that have been
mapped, excavated, and classified in the last ten
years. This with the aim to shed light on the process
of cultural interaction among these people, and how
these processes shaped their way of life, and how
they maintained and/or transformed their cultural
traditions.
The Study Area
The western slope of the Andes is characterized by
the juxtaposition of different ecological floor, that
conform a very complex ecological mosaic from the
coast all the way up to the highland, over 4000 masl.
This includes: (a) the arid coast with no rainfall,
ephemeral vegetation consequence of an ocean fog
that typically overcast the littoral, specially in winter,
(b) coastal valleys running from the Andes, through
the desert, surrounded by hyper arid interfluvial
pampas (c) the basin between the Coastal Cordillera
and the western slope of the Andes. This included
the Lower sierra (3000 masl, 80 to 100 km from the
coast, rainfall = 50-60 mm per year, very disperse
vegetation of cactus and small shrubs, few animal,
low biomass production in general), (e) the upper
155
sierra (ca. 3500 masl, rainfall 200-300 mm per year,
larger biomass production associated with a great di-
versity of plant community, small and large mam-
mals in low concentration), and (e) the Andean high
plateau (4500 masl, no permanent snow, volcanoes of
6000 mast more, rainfall 300-350 mm per year, but
cold desert conditions, that allowed less biological
diversity and biomass production than at the sierra).
In sum, we deal with rather fragile and slim ecologi-
cal resources for human activity, which are widely
spaced in the landscape.
General Statements about Andean Political
Economy
The main characteristicof Andean culture, is that civ-
ilization or social complexity was not based on mar-
ket and tribute economy, with any group specializa-
tion in one of the ecological floor described above. In-
stead Andean people, according to a model proposed
by John Murra early in the sixties, created a system
defined as vertical or ecological complementarity,
which means that each community tried to maintain
direct control over as many ecological possibilities as
possible, depending on the eizeof the community,
and its ability to maintain colonial settlements out-
side of their head towns, on the western and/or east-
em sides of the Andes (4). This was not only an aspi-
ration or a political economic desire of the altiplano
people (the highlanders), as it has been emphasized
from the classic model of verticality or complemen-
tarity. Marginal populations of the coast and lower
valleys may have also attempted to control economic
resources toward the highland, as we have been dis-
cussing elsewhere.
The Case of Northern Chile and Southern Peru
In this study we are dealing with the attempts of the
caranga to control ecological floor of the Arica re-
gion. This is a political group, which maintained
their main center in the highland of Bolivia, south of
Lake Titicaca. It is described by written Spaniard
records of the XVlth to XVlllth century, as a group
that maintained settlements in the Sierra of Arica (1).
According to Durston and Hidalgo’s model (5), the
caranga tried to maintain colonial settlement in the
sierra of Arica (labeled as secondary center). The ter-
tiary centers, instead located in the lower or coastal
valleys were not directly controlled as caranga tried
to establish political arrangement with the people of
the valleys. In this way they did not take the risk of
156
sending their own people farther away from their
territories. In any case, we are certain now that these
highlanders, the caranga, managed to have direct or
indirect control over the Arica region, during the
colonial period.
Local people from these valleys were organized
under a non-centralized political structure during
prehistoric times. They are recognized as a political
entity as the cole in the ethnohistorical records, gen-
erated after the European invasion in the XVlth cen-
tury. They also tried to maintain control over marine,
valley and sierra resources, and in this enterprise
they ran into the highlanders, particularly in the
sierra.
If this was the prehistoric political scenario, the
question is how we identify the altiplanic people
(sensu caranga) and the local groups (sensu Cole) in
the archeological records, disperse in the vertical
landscape. We have used several lines of evidence to
identify and explain the system of interaction be-
tween theses groups. Particularly, the pottery analy-
sis and settlement patterns show heterogeneous ar-
chaeological panorama: A palimpsest difficult to sort
out. The Caillama and Molle Pampa sites located in
the sierra and lower valley respectivelly, are gaod
study cases to shed light over our reserach question.
Both sites list among its features the presence of
chullpas, rather uncommon outside of the altiplano.
Caillama
At Caillama (in the sierra of Arica at 3000 masl) we
found two types of tombs or burials: (a) Cysts:
Above ground semi-circular stones chamber, com-
mon in the region; (b) Chullpas: Above ground rec-
tangular adobe brick structure (fig. 2). From a total of
46 tombs inventoried, 27 (59%) are cysts, and 19
(41%) are Chullpas (6).
Cemetery of Molle Pampa
At Molle Pampa Este (in the lover valley of Lluta, 20
km from the coast, 500 masl), a Late Period settle-
ment (1400-1500 A.D.), more than 70 tombs were
found. Among them there was just a small and badly
preserved adobe brick burial structure. The other
tombs correspond to different kinds of stone cysts,
common in the area. At Molle Pampa Medio next to
Molle Pampa Este, a Late Intermediate Period settle-
ment (1100-1400 A.D.), we found more than 50
tombs, and one of them is also an adobe brick burial
structure (fig. 3).
 plan view
, i
front
Figure 2. Display of an adobe brick chullpa at Caillama.
The statistical distribution of decorated pottery in
these sites shows a clear dominance of the local pot-
tery, both at the lower valleys as well as at the sierra
settlements. We use decorated pottery as a mean of
cultural marker to identify the political groups men-
tioned in the historical records.
At domestic domains the local decorated pottery was
a main commodity both in the sierra and in the
lower valley settlements. This data offer the follow-
ing possible political scenarios: (a) local population,
the Cole, were able to control territories and resources
from the coast all the way up to the sierra. In this sce-
nario, caranga did not have actual settlements in the
sierra, as suggested by the ethnohistorical records.
The high presence of chullpas at Caillama tend to
distort this scenario. (b) The caranga did have a sec-
\ ---
:
I
2
profile
ondary center in the sierra of Arica, possibly, at Cail-
lama masked with an intense interaction with local
communities through social or ceremonial activities
that required important use of locally made decorat-
ed pottery. In this way the caranga did not make ma-
jor efforts to defend their position in the sierra in the
domestic domains, thus they incorporated into their
daily life the cultural material of the lower valley
population, the Cole. In another, possibly more inti-
mate domain the caranga built their chullpas, for in-
ternal social coherence, as well as to publicly show
an idiosyncratic symbol of prestige, power. In this
way they used an ideological symbol to defend and
mark their arrival into the region, through the chull-
pas, which ideological impact is obvious in the land-
scape. In the lower valley, in contrast, the impact of
ideological control of the Caranga from the altiplano
is very weak, as few Chullpas were built.
Furthermore, we think that local cole leader may
157
 eración Colonial de Estructuras Archipielágicas. Chun-
gara 29:249-273. 1997.
6. Romero A. El pukara de Caillama, Ias chulpas de barro
y el control politico de la sierra de Arica durante el
Periodo lntermedio Tardlo. Boletin-e Azeta. Febrero
A-
2002 (www.uta.cl/masma/azeta)

Figure 3. Display of an adobe brick structure at Molle Pampa

have been able to create certain political coalitions

between them to negotiate the entrance of the
Caranga to the sierra.
This gave them the possibility to maintain their
own settlements in the sierra, about 60 km from the
lower valleys. They may also have arranged to have
access to the high plateau or altiplano resources
through exchange with the caranga or by sending
their own people up there, about 60 km from the
sierra (i.e. pukara Visviri). In the same way, the
caranga were able to obtain coastal resources.

Acknowledgements
Study supported by grants of Fondecyt 1970597 and
1000457.

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