T-4A (Chiripa Pata)

Chiripa Pata is a large site located approximately 15 km east of Chiripa (T-1) on the main road. It lies near the boundary of the modern communities of Chiripa and Pequery, though the entire site falls within the boundaries of Chiripa. Running along a natural ridge, the sherd scatter extends almost 300 m north of the road to the pampa. Several modern houses are located on the site, and it has been extensively plowed for agriculture.

The site seems to have four very broad terraces descending from the road to the pampa. On the uppermost of these terraces I observed large monolithic blocks of sandstone and limestone, almost certainly indicating the presence of some sort of platform or sunken court. No such structure could be discerned using surface indications, however. The principal occupation of the site is during the Tiwanaku Period. It is to this time that the monolithic blocks probably pertain. The first occupation at the site, however, is during the Middle Chiripa phase. The Middle Chiripa scatter at Chiripa Pata extends over 3.25 ha, with a population index of 171.

While the Taraco Archaeological Project was working at Chiripa, we hear constant reports of tombs opened by plowing at Chiripa Pata. I myself have seen several freshly opened stone-lined cysts on the site, and mortuary inventories from several others. There seem to be a large number of graves present at the site. Moreover, discussion with local landowners led to the discovery that the cemeteries seem to be arranged in a ring around the main body of the site. That is, tombs almost always appear around the fringes of the sherd scatter. this observation is consistent with the structure of the Chen Chen site in Moquegua ([Bandy et al. 1996]), which I helped map in 1995. This may or may not be a broader Tiwanaku mortuary pattern, but the parallel is certainly suggestive.

Given the importance accorded both to mountains and to sightlines in the Andes generally, the location of Chiripa Pata may have been of some importance in the past. If one walks from the West (Chiripa, Taraco or Santa Rosa) toward La Paz along the modern road, it is precisely as one enters the site of Chiripa Pata that one catches one's first glimpse of the peak of Illimani, the 6000+ meter peak overlooking the city.

A final historical note: in 1934 Wendell Bennett - in the same season in which he excavated the famous Houses 1 and 2 on the Chiripa mound - excavated a test trench ``at the old Chiripa ranch, about one mile east of the present hacienda'' ([Bennett 1936]: 415). The 'old Chiripa ranch' is almost certainly Chiripa Pata, especially as the only material recovered there by Bennett pertained to the Tiwanaku Period.