Abstract
AbstractIn this study, we assess competing interpretations of a burnt ceremonial structure from the terminal Middle Formative period (ca. 300–100 BCE) by analyzing the stepped platform mound at Chiripa, Bolivia, through a systematic reconstruction of the fire that destroyed it. We developed a model of potential fire pathways, their social contexts, and material indicators. Our approach contrasts incipient fires from accident or arson to planned fires initiated for functional or social ends. We assessed these pathways for the Chiripa mound fire through experimental, geoarchaeological, faunal, and botanical data. Experiments were aimed at deducing the temperature, duration, and oxidation conditions of the fire. The fire temperature and duration were approximated from geoarchaeological analyses of construction materials in comparison with controls, and thermal alteration of faunal bone. Fuels were reconstructed through paleoethnobotanical analysis of charred remains from discrete areas within the burnt structure. We conclude that an intentional fire burned the structures on the Chiripa mound to temperatures of 700 °C or higher under oxidizing conditions for several hours. The pattern of heat-altered materials recovered would have required a substantial supplemental fuel load. At the 3840 masl elevation of Chiripa, the effective control of a high temperature oxidizing fire demonstrates technical expertise in fire management. Our findings indicate the fire appears intentional, likely a ritual event. We believe the structures were burned to facilitate a socio-political change during a period of social transition at the end of the Middle Formative period in Bolivia.
Funder
National Geographic Society
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference158 articles.
1. Angelo, D. (2014). Assembling ritual, the burden of the everyday: an exercise in relational ontology in Quebrada de Humahuaca. Argentina. World Archaeology, 46(2), 270–287.
2. Allen, C. J. (2012). The hold life has: Coca and cultural identity in an Andean community. Smithsonian Institution.
3. Ansión, J. (1986). El Árbol y El Bosque en la Sociedad Andina. Proyecto FAO/Holanda/INFOR.
4. Argollo, J., Ticcla, L., Kolata, A. L., & Rivera, O. (1996). Geology, geomorphology, and soils of the Tiwanaku and Catari river basins. In A. L. Kolata (Ed.), Tiwanaku and Its Hinterland (pp. 57–88). Smithsonian Institution Press.
5. Arkush, E. N. (2009). Warfare, space, and identity in the south-central Andes: Constraints and choices. In A. E. Nielsen & W. H. Walker (Eds.), Warfare in cultural context: Practice, agency, and the archaeology of violence (pp. 190–217). University of Arizona Press.