Between July of 1998 and July of 1999 the Catastro Arqueológico
Taraco (CAT), under my direction, undertook a full coverage archaeological
survey of the Taraco Peninsula. The survey area covers approximately
85.22 km
. It may be found on Hoja 5844 IV of the Carta Nacional
of the Instituto Geográfico Militar de Bolivia. The project area
is located mainly in Canton Taraco, Provincia Ingavi in the Department
of La Paz, though a small portion of Canton Huacullani, Provincia
Los Andes was also surveyed. In the course of the work the project
registered 476 prehistoric sites dating to all periods of the region's
human occupation (Figure 3.1 and Appendix A).
The CAT survey of the Taraco Peninsula extends what is becoming a very important settlement dataset in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. This includes surveys of the Tiwanaku Valley by Juan Alabarracín-Jordan and James Matthews, and of the Pampa Koani by John Janusek. Together with the Taraco Peninsula, these surveys have covered about 600 contiguous square kilometers and have registered nearly 2000 archaeological sites. This makes the southern Titicaca Basin one of the best-studied areas in South America.
