By any measure, the Tiwanaku/Early Pacajes transition was the most dramatic settlement transformation in the history of human occupation on the Taraco Peninsula. Most fundamentally, it marked the end of a 2500-year tradition of nucleated habitation and village life that had persisted from the Early Chiripa phase. The ancient system of villages and communities which persisted more or less intact throughout the Formative and Tiwanaku periods disappeared completely. Every single one of the old Taraco Peninsula villages was either abandoned in the Early Pacajes phase or was reduced to occupation by a few dispersed households (for the example of Chiripa, see [Bandy 1997]).
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All of the metrics I have been using to characterize the settlement system reflect this dramatic change. Thus, the total number of sites in the Early Pacajes phase actually increases relative to the preceding Tiwanaku period (Tables 6.3 and 9.1). However, the phase population index declines drastically from 6923 to 1408 at the same time. This decrease in the average site size reflects 1) the shift from nucleated to dispersed habitation, as discussed above, and 2) a general depopulation on the Taraco Peninsula.
Averaged over the entire 350 year span of the LIP, population grew
at a rate of -0.46% annually (Table 9.1). This
in itself is a fairly dramatic rate of population decline. However,
there are several reasons to believe that the rate of decrease was
in fact quite a bit more severe than the phase population index values
indicate. First of all, the LIP phase population index is most certainly
inflated relative to the Tiwanaku phase population index. This is
so because occupation of the Early Pacajes sites was probably more
ephemeral and shorter-term than was that of the Tiwanaku period villages.![[*]](file:/usr/share/latex2html/icons/footnote.png){kind=icon}
Second is the fact that most of the population decrease probably
occurred very rapidly, possibly in the century or so immediately following
the collapse of the Tiwanaku polity. In either case, it is clear that
population on the Taraco peninsula decreased drastically following
the Tiwanaku collapse.
Not only did the mean site size and overall population levels on the
peninsula decrease precipitously, but the settlement system was completely
reorganized also. The Early Pacajes phase has an occupation continuity
index value of 38, meaning that only 38% of the localities occupied
during the Tiwanaku period continued to have an occupation at least
at some point during the Early Pacajes phase. This is the lowest rate
of occupation continuity in the prehistory of the Taraco Peninsula, and suggests a dramatic rupture with the by-then ancient village
system. The site founding index value of 69 is also rather high, though
not truly exceptional.
The shift from nucleated to dispersed habitation is also reflected by the total collapse of the Tiwanaku period site size hierarchy. Figure 9.3 compares the two phases. The Early Pacajes data show a clear unimodal distribution, as compared to the trimodal Tiwanaku pattern. As would be expected, the Tiwanaku period settlement hierarchy failed to outlive the state.
The overall settlement system of the Early Pacajes phase is represented by the settlement density map in Figure 9.4. Since Cerro Pulpera is associated with the Lower Tiwanaku Valley settlement system, there is only small village on the Taraco Peninsula at this time (T-153). It may have been the seat of a prominent individual, family or household. Apart from this settlement, the remainder of the population was dispersed in a low-density scatter of hamlets and single-family farmsteads.
