The Titicaca Basin, situated on the boundary between the modern states of Peru and Bolivia, represents one of the relatively rare instances in world prehistory of the pristine ([Fried 1967]) development or evolution of the state. This state, which we know as Tiwanaku, has been the subject of a considerable amount of research over the past fifteen years. Various projects have elucidated the nature of Tiwanaku urbanism and the settlement hierarchy of its core area ([Albarracín-Jordan and Mathews 1990,Albarracín-Jordan 1992,Albarracín-Jordan et al. 1993,Albarracín-Jordan 1996b,Albarracín-Jordan 1996a,McAndrews et al. 1997,Bermann 1990,Bermann 1994,Janusek 1994,Kolata 1982,Kolata 1993,Stanish 1989]), the operation of its agricultural surplus economy ([Kolata 1986,Kolata 1991,Kolata et al. 1996]), the functioning and spatial organization of its ceremony and ritual ([Alconini Mujica 1995,Manzanilla 1992,Vranich 1999]), and the relations between Tiwanaku and its various peripheries, colonial and otherwise ([Bandy et al. 1996,Bermann and Castillo 1993,Cohen et al. 1995,Bermann et al. 1989,Goldstein 1989b,Goldstein 1993b,Goldstein 1993a,Higueras 1995,Oakland Rodman 1992]).
What we still know very little about, however, is the process by which it came to be. We know that the site of Tiwanaku rather abruptly became an urban center sometime in the Tiwanaku III phase. We know that some of its monumental architecture - the semi-subterranean temple - probably predates this urbanism, as does some of the stone sculpture. We know something about the ceramic sequence, as well, though how much is actively debated. But we know very little about the varied political formations which populated the 1800 years of settled agricultural village life before Tiwanaku's rise to regional preeminence. When did Tiwanaku begin to be regionally dominant? What were its relations with neighboring polities? When indeed did multi-community polities begin to emerge in what later became the core area of Tiwanaku? How should we characterize the social matrix from which Tiwanaku developed? To these and to many other important questions we have only vague and unsatisfactory responses.
It is an exciting time to be working on the Titicaca Basin Formative. The last decade has seen the completion of a number of significant projects, and the inauguration of many more. Of great significance have been the regional settlement surveys completed in recent years. Among these we may count those of Albarracín-Jordan and Matthews in the Tiwanaku Valley ([Albarracín-Jordan 1992,Mathews 1992]), of Charles Stanish in the Juli-Pomata area ([Stanish 1994,Stanish et al. 1997,Stanish and Steadman 1994]), of Aldenderfer and Klink in the Ilave drainage, of Kirk Frye near Chucuito, of Janusek in the Pampa Koani ([Janusek and Kolata 2002]), and of Carlos Lémuz in the Huatta area of Bolivia ([Lémuz Aguirre 2001]). Several other surveys have begun in the last few years or are slated to begin soon (cf. [Cohen 2001,Plourde and Stanish 2001]). We will soon have a very substantial settlement dataset from the Titicaca Basin, totaling well over 1000 km2 of complete pedestrian coverage, which should permit comparisons of regional developmental trajectories and help to answer many of the questions about the rise of the Titicaca Basin complex societies.
Many of these projects have taken the Formative as their focus and have been undertaken in areas of special interest to the ``formatólogo''. As a result, we find ourselves in the somewhat unexpected position of knowing less about the Formative in the nuclear area of Tiwanaku than in other areas, such as Juli-Pomata. This is partly so because the one published survey of a portion of the Tiwanaku heartland - Albarracín-Jordan and Matthews's milestone publication of 1990 ([Albarracín-Jordan and Mathews 1990])- treated the Formative as a single long, undivided phase, giving very little indication of historical development internal to the period; and as it turns out, it is partly because the Tiwanaku Valley, including Tiwanaku itself, was a rather peripheral area in the Early and Middle Formative periods; sites there were few and small.
Since the work of Albarracín-Jordan and Matthews, however, Lee Steadman has produced a quite usable ceramic chronology for the Early and Middle Formative periods in the Southern Basin ([Steadman 1999]). Janusek and Lémuz have independently produced the beginnings of a usable chronology for the Late Formative ([Janusek 2002,Lémuz Aguirre 2001]). This work has made possible detailed and relatively - relatively - fine-grained settlement analysis of Formative period communities in the Tiwanaku heartland. It was to undertake such an analysis that I began - in August of 1998 - an archaeological survey of the Taraco Peninsula. This volume reports the results of my research.