In the Middle Formative Period this earlier far-flung and low-intensity
trading network remained active. In addition, however, there is evidence
for intensification of exchange within the Titicaca Basin itself,
and probably also of trade with immediately adjacent regions. This
evidence takes the form of large quantities of a particular kind of
rock, an olivine basalt exotic to the Taraco Peninsula which was imported
in the form of finished agricultural hoes.![[*]](file:/usr/share/latex2html/icons/footnote.png){kind=icon}
In my analysis of the lithic artifacts from the TAP excavations, I designated the two varieties of this olivine basalt as Raw Material Types (RMT) 61 and 65. Both are fine-textured, homogeneous gray stones with few crystalline inclusions. Both include green-colored olivine phenocrysts. RMT 61 is distinguished from RMT 65 by having larger and more frequent olivine phenocrysts, but is otherwise identical. Both of these materials differ from the more common andesite (RMT 62), which has a very similar color but contains frequent plagioclase feldspar inclusions as well as some biotite, and is generally more porous and coarse-grained. Feldspar is not present in the basalt materials. Titicaca Basin archaeologists have normally grouped the olivine basalt and andesite as I have described them here under the single term ``andesite''. Thus, frequent references in the literature to ``andesite hoes'' (cf. [Steadman 1995,Seddon 1994b]) are quite possibly references to what I am calling olivine basalt. Other types of basalt are present at Chiripa, including a black, vitreous variety, but these are less frequent and are not relevant to the present discussion.
| a) Number of unmixed proveniences by phase
b) Count and weight of raw materials 61and 65 from unmixed proveniences
Data from TAP excavations at Chiripa,
1992-1998
|
Table 6.1b shows the occurrence
of this rock (olivine basalt) in unmixed proveniences of the three
Chiripa phases (counts of which are given in Table 6.1a).
It is clear, despite a sub-optimal sample size, that the stone type
in question occurs only in the Late Chiripa phase. This corroborates
my own rather more informal observation that this rock is a Middle
Formative marker throughout the southern and western Titicaca Basin,
at dozens of sites in the Chucuito, Ilave, Juli, Yunguyu and Desaguadero areas, as well as in the Tiwanaku Valley,
Taraco Peninsula and Pampa Koani of Bolivia. The same rock has also
been observed on Middle Formative sites in the vicinities of Puno
(Carol Schultz pers. comm. 2000) and Pukara (Amanda Cohen pers. comm.
1999) in the northern Titicaca Basin. I have personally inspected
samples of the material from these latter two localities and can confirm
they are visually identical to the material from the southern and
western Titicaca Basin and from Chiripa.
|
Carlos Lémuz reports ``andesite'' hoes from the area of Santiago de Huatta, to the North of the Taraco Peninsula. He reports not only agricultural implements, but also local sources of the material ([Lémuz Aguirre 2001]: 179). Since I have not personally inspected these materials, I cannot say whether they are the same as the olivine basalts present in the Taraco Peninsula sites. They may in fact be a local andesite. Other data certainly suggest that the lithic sequence of the Santiago de Huatta Peninsula is very different from that of the southern Titicaca Basin generally. For example, Lémuz reports high frequencies of ``andesite'' hoes through the Tiwanaku period, by which time stone agricultural implements had largely disappeared from Taraco Peninsula and Tiwanaku valley sites ([Lémuz Aguirre 2001]: 179-181).
The TAP excavation data demonstrate convincingly that RMT 61 and 65
did not occur in the Early Formative. No comparable data exist to
show whether or not the material was present in the area in the subsequent
Late Formative Period. This would require excavation of comparable
volumes of intact LF deposits. However, I can say that surface densities
of RMT 61 and 65 on non-MF sites is much lower than on MF sites. As
an example, we may compare the cases of Sunaj Pata (T-268) and Kumi
Kipa (T-272). These two sites are located with a few kilometers of
one another on tip of the peninsula near the town of Santa Rosa (see
Figures 6.3 and 7.3). The former
has a significant MF occupation, but no LF1 occupation. The latter
is the opposite, with no MF material, but a substantial LF1 sector.
Both sites were systematically surface collected. As may be appreciated
in Table 6.2, the surface density
of RMT 61 and 65 is almost four times higher at the MF site than at
the LF1 site. This would seem to indicate that trade in this rock type either diminished
significantly or ceased altogether in the LF1 period.
Long-distance exchange in the Early Formative seems to have involved
small numbers of very small items: finished obsidian projectile points
and beads of shell and sodalite. The quantity of RMT 61 and 65 hoes
that was imported to the Taraco Peninsula in the Middle Formative
represents a volumetric increase of several orders of magnitude over
the goods imported through the Early Formative exchange system.
collected