Middle Chiripa

Middle Chiripa is Steadman's second Chiripa phase, and has been dated to 1000 - 800 B.C. Middle Chiripa ceramics are generally dark in color and unslipped. Olla forms tend to have higher and more flared necks than was the case in the Early Chiripa phase. Neckless ollas are present, but rare, and vertical strap handles appear for the first time. Middle Chiripa ceramics are primarily of a set of non-micaceous pastes tempered with translucent, rounded quartz inclusions. These pastes cannot be readily identified in the field, but are easily identifiable with a loupe. Taken together, they comprise paste group 2 in my frequency profile analysis of surface ceramics (see Chapter 3).

Painted ceramics appear for the first time in the Middle Chiripa phase. These ceramics most definitely anticipate the classic Late Chiripa red on cream wares. Middle Chiripa painted ceramics, however - at least the few that have been collected, as they are very rare - are usually slipped with a kaolin clay, producing cream-colored slip that is painted with designs in a red clay slip. Middle Chiripa seems therefore to be characterized by red on cream, and red on unslipped brown ceramics, quite the inverse of the Late Chiripa cream on reds. These red on cream wares have not been reported by other investigators at Chiripa, although I have recovered a few examples in my surface collections at nearby sites. At Camata in the western Titicaca Basin, the Qaluyu Red on Cream style dates exclusively to the contemporaneous Early Qaluyu 2 phase ([Steadman 1995]: Table 33; roughly 1050 - 850 B.C.), and is quite possibly related to the Middle Chiripa wares.

Steadman's Middle Chiripa phase shares no features with Browman's Llusco phase ([Browman 1978a]), and the two seem to be describing entirely different assemblages.