Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421

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Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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Managing the risk of climatic variability in late prehistoric northern Chile

Colleen Zori a,⇑, Erika Brant b
a
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, 308 Charles E. Young Drive North, A201 Fowler Building, Box 951510, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1510, United States
b
Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400120, Charlottesville, VA 22904, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The concept of risk management encompasses the diverse strategies employed in preventing and miti-
Received 7 November 2011 gating losses associated with social and environmental calamities. Building on the growing literature
Revision received 6 March 2012 on risk, we use archaeological data from the Tarapacá Valley, located in northern Chile, to document
Available online 1 April 2012
the risk-reduction tactics mobilized by the valley’s inhabitants to navigate the increasingly volatile envi-
ronmental and social conditions of the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450). With the onset of
Keywords: exceptionally unpredictable environmental conditions after AD 1100, residents of the Tarapacá Valley
Risk management
chose strategies such as increased trade and agricultural diversification and extensification to minimize
Ecology
Drought
shortages in staple resources. Threats of raiding and intra-community strife exacerbated the risks asso-
Warfare ciated with subsistence shortfalls. Valley communities elected a number of strategies to curtail con-
Trade flict-induced risk, including movement of settlements and field systems to defensible locations,
Andes construction of walls and other defensive features, and the introduction of plazas. Rock art data suggest
that trade was increasingly embedded in ritually sanctioned events involving groups from different eco-
logical zones. While studies of risk have focused disproportionately on environmental hazards, subsis-
tence-related crises are often compounded by social hazards that require their own risk-mitigating
strategies, further constraining options for coping with subsistence stress.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction shortfalls (contributions in Browman (1987a); contributions in

Environmental and social hazards have preoccupied minds, im-
pacted social relations, and provoked cultural change throughout
human history. Hazards are ‘‘naturally occurring or human-in-
duced process(es) or event(s) with the potential to create loss’’
(Smith, 1996, p. 5). Environmental hazards include events and con-
ditions such as droughts, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions,
and long-term climate change. Common social hazards are popula-
tion pressure, epidemics, and interpersonal and intergroup conflict.
Hazards vary in terms of their timing, duration, frequency, spatial
extent, and severity, and this variation is frequently unpredictable.
The concept of risk embodies this unpredictable variation and the
potential for loss or other adverse consequences resulting from
natural and/or social hazards faced by human social groups (Allen,
2004; Cashdan, 1990a; Goland, 1993; Halstead and O’Shea, 1989a).
All human societies face differing degrees and combinations of
hazards, and individuals and communities have a variety of poten-
tial options for managing the risk of losses. Many anthropological
studies on risk have focused on subsistence, particularly the strat-
egies used to minimize the probability of hunting and agricultural
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: colleen.zori@ucla.edu (C. Zori), erika.brant@gmail.com
(E. Brant).
Cashdan (1990b), Goland (1993); contributions in Halstead and
O’Shea (1989b), Marston (2011) and Winterhalder et al. (1999)).
It is clear, however, that individuals and societies also contend
with social hazards, and such hazards frequently compound the
risks presented by ecological crises (Bollig, 2006; Larson et al.,
1994; Nel and Righarts, 2008; Young, 1997). Although not as easily
quantified, social hazards require their own set of risk-mitigating
strategies, significantly influencing how people in the past made
decisions, both monumental and mundane. Consideration of how
environmental and social hazards combine to enable, constrain,
or eliminate particular strategies is therefore imperative to under-
standing how people manage the full spectrum of risks to which
they are exposed.
Archaeology has the potential to be an important source of pri-
mary data regarding the strategies elected and mobilized by pre-
historic groups to diminish exposure to risk, both in terms of
reducing the probability of encountering losses and buffering the
impact of such hazards when they did occur. We begin by discuss-
ing strategies that have been used to manage the environmental
hazard of drought and the social hazards of both inter-group and
intra-group conflict. To illustrate the utility of applying such ap-
proaches to understand the past, we then present an archaeologi-
cal case study from the Tarapacá Valley of northern Chile (Fig. 1)
that details the various risk-management strategies chosen by

0278-4165/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2012.03.005
404 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
Fig. 1. Map of northern Chile showing location of the Quebrada de Tarapacá.
local communities during the Late Intermediate Period (AD
1000–1450). One of the most salient characteristics of this period
was its climatic variability, across both time and geographic space.
Such conditions exacerbated subsistence risk for people living in
the arid northern Atacama Desert and the adjacent highlands,
while simultaneously creating new potential hazards in the form
of inter-community raiding and intra-community conflict. We ad-
dress how communities in the valley responded to the combined
threat of drought and social conflict by examining changes in set-
tlement patterns, site layouts, artifact assemblages, and rock art.
Together, these data sets attest to the constellation of strategies
chosen by Tarapacá households and communities and, more gener-
ally, to the resilience of desert peoples confronted with the threats
of food shortages and increasingly hostile neighbors.
Strategies of risk management
A number of scholars have developed specific typologies of
behaviors used to minimize risk, focusing particularly on buffering
against food shortfalls (Browman, 1987b; Colson, 1979; Fleurett,
1986; Halstead and O’Shea, 1989a; Watts, 1988; see review of eth-
nographic literature in Winterhalder et al. (1999), Table 4). By con-
trast, Wiessner (1977, 1982a, 1982b) provides a more generalized
and flexible schema for analyzing risk reduction that can be
broadly applied to a variety of potential hazards. These include:
(a) prevention of hazards or reduction of their impacts; (b) transfer
of risks to another party; (c) self-assumption of risk, or risk
retention; and (d) pooling of risk, or risk sharing. Here we discuss
these strategies in relation to the environmental and social stress-
ors of drought and conflict, two hazards that confronted individu-
als and communities of the Tarapacá Valley during the Late
Intermediate Period.
Managing the risks presented by drought
Recurrent droughts are a complex hazard for agricultural and
agro-pastoral populations, particularly because periods of reduced
precipitation can vary in magnitude, duration, location and timing
(Augustine, 2010).
Risk prevention
Resource diversification, intensification, and extensification are
three broad categories of strategies used to minimize the impacts
of drought. Diversification serves to reduce variance in subsistence
returns, while intensification and extensification are efforts to in-
crease production to the point that shortfalls are unlikely (Marston,
2011, p. 191). Strategies of diversification depend on a drought’s
complex spatial patterning across the landscape and the fact that
not all plants and domesticated animals are affected in the same
ways. These approaches include preferential selection of drought-
resistant crops, multi-cropping (planting a variety of crops within
the same field), crop rotation, supplementation with wild foods,
shifting the balance of investment between agricultural and pasto-
ral activities, cultivation of spatially disparate fields, mobility of
 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
part or all of the household or community between areas of differ-
ential resource availability, and migration (Anderies et al., 2008;
Baker and Hoffman, 2006; Gallant, 1989; Goland, 1993; Legge,
1989; Marston, 2011; McLeaman and Smit, 2006; O’Shea, 1989;
Shipton, 1990; Spielmann et al., 2011; Winterhalder et al., 1999;
Wiessner, 1982a).
Intensification aims at increasing yields through greater invest-
ment of time and energy without expanding the area under culti-
vation, and can take the form of the shortening of fallow periods,
use of fertilizers, increased weeding, and overproduction to accu-
mulate a surplus that can be subsequently stored (Adams and
Mortimore, 1997; Allen, 2004; Gallant, 1989; Nichols, 1987; Stone,
1994). Extensification is the process of introducing production into
lands that were previously unused or used for less intensive pur-
poses. Like intensification, extensification acts to increase agricul-
tural yields to avoid shortfalls, and additionally manages risks by
creating plots with distinct risk profiles (McCloskey, 1976). It can
be accomplished through the construction of terraces to bring
steep hillsides under cultivation or the creation of new farmlands
through clear-cutting, extending plowed areas, or the expansion
of irrigation systems (Erenstein, 2006; Krysanova et al., 2008;
Tachibana et al., 2001).
Transferring risk
One way to overcome the risk of drought is by forcibly transfer-
ring this risk to one or more outside groups. Ethnographic, ethno-
historic, and archaeological case studies demonstrate that raiding
to obtain stored goods and/or livestock, violent displacement of
neighbors, and territorial conquest and subsequent resource
extraction are all strategies employed to cope with extended peri-
ods of drought (Arkush, 2006, 2008, 2011; Billman et al., 2000; Em-
ber and Ember, 1992; Endfield et al., 2004; Field, 2004; Keeley,
1996; Kennett and Kennett, 2000; Lambert and Walker, 1991; Lape
and Chin-Yung, 2008; LeBlanc, 1999; Nel and Righarts, 2008;
Raleigh, 2010; Rappaport, 1967; Seltzer and Hastorf, 1990). In such
cases, the risk-reduction strategies of one group increases the haz-
ards—both in terms of inter-community and intra-community con-
flict—encountered by others in the surrounding region (see below).
Self-assumption of risk
Storage, which absorbs contemporary losses with previously
accumulated surpluses, is the primary method of self-assumption
or self-insurance of the risks presented by drought in pre-modern
societies. Storage in the form of livestock or of bulk staples such as
grain can take place at the level of the community, a form of risk
pooling (see below), or the individual household. There is a funda-
mental difference between these two options in whether commu-
nity authorities or autonomous households subsequently control
the disbursement of stored resources and, ultimately, who bears
the risk in times of drought (Wesson, 1999). As noted by DeBoer
(1988; see also Flannery, 2002; Hayden, 1995; Wiessner, 1982b),
privatized household storage, particularly in clandestine subterra-
nean facilities, is an effective way of limiting public visibility, cur-
tailing social pressures to share with other community members,
and reserving surpluses for household use. In such cases, it is the
individual household rather than the community that assumes
the burden of absorbing drought-induced subsistence variability
(Flannery, 2002; Wiessner, 1982b).
Risk pooling
Risk pooling distributes losses over a ‘‘large number of indepen-
dent exposure units so that losses can be more predictable and can
be absorbed by the gains of other units’’ (Wiessner, 1977, p. 8). Two
important forms of risk sharing are intra-community reciprocity
and inter-community exchange.
405
Supra-household sharing of food is one form of risk pooling in
relatively small-scale societies, such that shortfalls experienced
by any one household can be offset by food produced or obtained
by others in the community (Davies and Bennett, 2007; Kaplan
et al., 1990). Winterhalder (1990) considers sharing and storage
functionally equivalent in terms of risk reduction. Sharing may
be ongoing, with the entirety of one harvest amalgamated in com-
munal storage structures, or more intermittent, with families peri-
odically sharing meals or communities pooling resources for feasts
associated with important rituals (Addison, 2007; Bollig, 2006;
Cashdan, 1985; Flannery, 2002; Langton, 1982; Lokuruka, 2006).
This type of reciprocity runs the risk of exploitation by free riders,
in which some households reap the benefit of supra-household
sharing without making equivalent contributions to the commu-
nity pool (Hames, 1990; Smith and Boyd, 1990). Particularly in
times of resource scarcity, there may be significant pressure for
households to conceal food stores from neighbors (Colson, 1979;
Firth, 1959; Shipton, 1990; Wiessner, 1982b).
As argued by Stanish (2004; Stanish and Haley, 2005), ritual is
one social mechanism by which equitable contribution by all com-
munity members is observed and measured, and through which
free riders can be identified and subsequently censured by the
group. In pre-modern societies, feasting was a ritualized activity
that in part served to redistribute food within and between com-
munities, but was also a public setting in which contributions of
various factions could be monitored.1 Supra-household reciprocity
in the form of food sharing or feasting should have a range of archae-
ological correlates, including ceramic assemblages skewed towards
serving and consumption vessels, faunal and/or botanical evidence
of large-scale consumption events, and architectural spaces such as
plazas conducive to community-level feasting activities (Blitz,
1993; Bray, 2003; Hayden, 1996; LeCount, 2001; Moore, 1996;
Pauketat et al., 2002; Potter, 2000; Wiessner, 1982a).
A second form of risk pooling is interregional exchange. Accord-
ing to Halstead and O’Shea (1989a, p. 4) exchange ‘‘functions in a
fashion similar to storage, in that present abundance is converted,
this time via social transactions, into future obligations in times of
need’’ (but see Torry, 1987). In some cases, such as the hxaro
exchange of the Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) in Africa, networks of interre-
gional relationships were maintained by the exchange of non-food
items, while in times of localized shortfalls, a hxaro participant
might relocate to a partner’s home territory to gain access to more
abundant resources there (Wiessner, 1977, 1982b). In other cases,
durable goods from a drought-stricken region are exchanged for
comestibles from one less adversely affected, typically through
long-standing trade relationships (Cashdan, 1985; Colson, 1979).
As with intra-community sharing, interregional exchange was
maintained in part through ritual. Although trade can build social
ties, it can also generate discontent, resentment, and conflict (Fos-
ter, 1977; Keeley, 1996; Plog, 1989). Embedding exchange in ritu-
alized contexts ‘‘gives trading behavior an affective dimension and
in many cases provides supernatural sanctions’’ that may help to
offset the potential for conflict (Foster, 1977, p. 2). Ritualization
of exchange may have been particularly important in times of re-
source shortfalls and imbalances. Minc and Smith (1989, p. 10)
note that ‘‘as the scale of subsistence stress expands beyond the
bounds of ‘normal’ social interaction, an increasing degree of
formalization, or ritualization, is invested in the maintenance of
the social relationships which guarantee access to needed
resources’’. This is particularly important in societies lacking
1
An additional benefit of community-level sharing in the form of feasting is that it
would have only placed periodic demands on individual household resources. Several
intriguing computer simulations have shown that ‘‘populations that share too much
and too broadly. . . are less successful than are more restricted sharers’’ (Reynolds
et al., 2005, p. 718; see also Hegmon, 1991).
406 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
overarching hierarchies or institutions that can forestall violence in
the case of disagreements (Ember and Ember, 1997; Keeley, 1996).
Managing the risks of conflict
Periods of drought may precipitate increases in inter-group hos-
tilities, such as raiding and territorial expansion, which function as
forms of risk transfer. Even once the threat of drought has abated,
the construction and occupation of fortified settlements and con-
comitant alterations to the sociopolitical landscape may make it
difficult to break ongoing cycles of warfare and violence (Allen,
2008; Arkush, 2008, 2011; Lape and Chin-Yung, 2008). In addition,
conflicts within communities are often exacerbated during periods
of subsistence stress and warfare. The strategies used by pre-mod-
ern populations to cope with the secondary hazard of social con-
flict can be analyzed using Wiessner’s schema (1977, 1982a,
1982b), particularly the notions of prevention/minimization of
hazards and risk pooling.
Risk prevention
Settlement patterns are vital indicators of strategies used to
prevent or diminish the potentially lethal consequences of aggres-
sion by external forces. These strategies include locating sites in
defendable settings such as hilltops, islands, or spits of land, as well
as the construction of defensive architectural features including
walls, palisades, watchtowers, moats, ditches, safeguarded entry-
ways, and internal strongholds (Allen, 1996, 2008; Keeley, 1996;
Keeley et al., 2007; LeBlanc, 1999, 2000). The construction of sites
with effective complexes of defensive features may be enough to
deter attacks (Allen, 2008; Roscoe, 2008). Caches of weapons, such
as projectile points or sling stones, suggest efforts to reduce re-
sponse times and maximize defensibility when under attack (Lippi
and Gudiño, 2010).
Risk pooling
Communities may pool the risk of external threats in several
ways. The most common is through aggregation of multiple com-
munities into a smaller number of larger sites for common defense,
thereby sharing the risk of attack and meeting it with a greater
number of defenders (Haas, 1989; LeBlanc, 1999; Nelson, 2000).
Alliances between settlements are another form of risk pooling,
and may be observed archaeologically through the development
of site clusters bounded by buffer zones (Arkush, 2011; LeBlanc,
1999, 2006). These allied settlements share reciprocal obligations
of mutual aid, and should be characterized by a high degree of
intervisibility, linked sometimes by smaller signaling sites or view-
sheds (Haas and Creamer, 1993; Jones, 2006; LeBlanc, 1999;
Swanson, 2003). LeBlanc (2000, pp. 55–58; see also Arkush,
2011) notes that shifting networks of trading relationships—some
of long durations, others more fleeting—can exist between coali-
tions engaged in periodic warfare, shoring up alliances and provid-
ing access to goods not available locally. Warfare and exchange are
by no means mutually exclusive. Ample historical, ethnographic,
and archaeological evidence suggests that groups that traded with
one another engaged in intermittent martial conflict as well (Altsc-
hul and Ezzo, 1995; Braun, 1998; Junker, 1999; Keeley, 1996, pp.
121–126; Lape and Chin-Yung, 2008; MacIntyre, 1983; McNiven,
1998).
Although a larger settlement can better provide for its own de-
fense, integration of diverse communities of individuals in the
comparatively confined space of a fortified settlement presented
challenges and generated tensions that sometimes escalated into
intra-site conflict (LeBlanc, 2000; Plog and Solometo, 1997).
Cross-cultural studies have shown that intra-society violence often
increases in tandem with external conflict (see e.g., Ross, 1985).
Plazas and other forms of open, communal space served as
important places for rituals, singing, dancing, feasting, and other
activities that fostered cooperation and social cohesion. As noted
by Potter (1998, p. 137) ‘‘the ability of open space to define, con-
fine, include, and exclude social interaction above the level of the
household makes it one of the single most important structuring
elements affecting the degree to which social units within a com-
munity are well-integrated’’. Communities that actively promote
and reinforce social cohesion through integrative communal rites
may cooperate more successfully in their defensive efforts, thereby
mitigating the risks presented by intra-group conflict.
A case study in risk management: the Tarapacá Valley in the
Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450)
Water has always been of paramount importance in the
Tarapacá Valley, given its location in the hyper-arid Atacama
Desert of northern Chile (see Fig. 1). First inhabited by mobile
hunter/gatherers between 8-10,000 years ago, the valley’s mod-
est but reliable water supply made it an important conduit of
travel and trade between the highlands, transverse valleys, and
the coast, particularly following the domestication of camelids
sometime after 2500–2000 BC (Simons, 1980; True and Crew,
1980; True and Gildersleeve, 1980; True and Núñez, 1974; Wil-
liams, 1980). Dating to the Early Formative Period (1000–500
BC), the earliest permanent settlements, such as the site of Casa-
rones, were located at the western extent of the valley (Table 1;
Núñez, 1986a; Uribe, 2006). Inhabitants practiced a mixed sub-
sistence strategy combining agro-pastoralism with exploitation
of wild plants and animals (Williams, 1980). Towards the end
of the Late Formative Period (500 BC–900 AD), sites at the wes-
tern end of the valley were abandoned and new settlements
constructed further up-stream. This shift has been attributed to
a decline in the amount of available water in the Tarapacá River,
coupled with an increasing focus on cultivated food resources,
which necessitated the construction of more elaborate irrigation
systems with intakes further up-valley and closer to the water’s
source (Núñez, 1986a, p. 29).
Although drought was an ever-present threat to the agricultural
and agro-pastoral populations of the South Central Andes, the Late
Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450) stands out as a time of pro-
nounced climatic variability. Droughts were frequent, occurred at
unpredictable intervals, and were often prolonged. Widespread in-
ter-group warfare occurred throughout the Andes in this period
(see Arkush, 2008, 2011 for review), a secondary hazard resulting
from the strategy of risk transfer and competition over land and re-
sources. The following discussion first outlines the dynamics
affecting the availability of water in the transverse valleys of north-
ern Chile, including the Tarapacá Valley, and in the adjacent high-
lands. Second, climatological data from a number of different
sources is reviewed with the aim of reconstructing climatic vari-
ability for a number of ecozones during the Late Intermediate Per-
iod. We demonstrate that rainfall was both highly variable and
highly unpredictable on inter-annual, decadal, and centennial
scales during this period, and that the altiplano and transverse
Table 1
Cultural chronology for the Tarapacá Valley.
Regional chronology Tarapacá component
Formative (1000 BC-AD 500) Early Formative (1000-500 BC)
Late Formative (500 BC-AD 900)
Middle Horizon (AD 500-1000)
Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1450) Tarapacá Phase (AD 900-1250)
Camiña Phase (AD 1250-1450)
Late Horizon (AD 1452-1532) Inka (AD 1450-1532)
Colonial (AD 1532 onwards) Early Colonial (AD 1532-1700)
Late Colonial (AD 1700-1818)
 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
valleys of the South Central Andes were subject to related but
divergent hydrological conditions. Using several archaeological
data sets from the Tarapacá Valley in northern Chile, we then
investigate the various strategies employed by valley communities
for coping with the combined environmental and social hazards of
drought and social conflict.
Reconstructing climate variability in the South Central Andes during
the Late Intermediate Period
The Tarapacá Valley is located in the northern portion of the
Atacama Desert (18°–27°S), one of the world’s oldest and driest de-
serts. Moisture from the Amazon Basin to the east has been
blocked by uplift of the Andean range, creating an extreme rain-
shadow, while the thermal inversion produced by the cold-water
Humboldt Current off of the western coast of the continent nor-
mally precludes precipitation drawn from the Pacific Ocean
(Houston, 2006a; Houston and Hartley, 2003; Strecker et al., 2007).
Cutting through the barren desert are a number of transverse
Pacific watershed valleys. Although some contain only seasonal
streams, water is available year-round in the Tarapacá River, with
flow fluctuating between a low of 0.159 m3/s during the month of
November and a high of 0.438 m3/s in the month of February
(Nester et al., 2007, pp. 19725–19726). The Tarapacá River peters
out in the fore-arc basin of the Pampa de Tamarugal before reach-
ing the Pacific Ocean, entering a large underground aquifer.
As little as 10–20 mm/year or less of rain falls at altitudes
between 1000 and 2000 masl in this part of the Atacama, so the
majority of the water carried in the transverse valleys is the result
of precipitation—whether direct runoff or snowmelt—above
3000 masl (Houston, 2006a). Here, some 300+ mm of rain falls pri-
marily during the austral summer months of December-March, as
a result of easterlies carrying moist air from the tropical Atlantic
Ocean across the Amazon (Zhou and Lau, 1998). Variation in in-
ter-annual precipitation results principally from cycles in the El
Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), such that warm El Niño condi-
tions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean generate highland droughts,
while cooler La Niña ocean temperatures result in increased trans-
port of moisture and greater rainfall (Bradley et al., 2003; Garreaud
and Aceituno, 2001; Hardy et al., 2003; Vuille, 1999).
Although below-average rainfall in the highlands significantly
reduces the flow of water in the northern Chilean valleys (Oyarzún
and Oyarzún, 2011), the presence of substantial subsurface water
reserves buffers the potentially calamitous effects of highland
drought. In particular, basal discharge from a regional aquifer
through a system of springs contributes to the flow of water in
the transverse river valleys (Magaritz et al., 1989, 1990; Nester
et al., 2007; Rech et al., 2002). While effects of flooding during
the La Niña phase of ENSO may be observed immediately and over
the following months in local ground water levels (Houston,
2006b), recharge from particularly large events may take up to
20–30 years to distribute throughout the complex aquifer underly-
ing the Pampa del Tamarugal (Houston, 2002, p. 3032), providing
some protection from highland water shortfalls even decades in
length. In addition, an elevated water table has the potential to
sustain a variety of deep-rooted indigenous plants and trees, as
well as wetlands in particularly damp periods, supporting both
flora and fauna that could be exploited by populations living in
the transverse valleys (Nester et al., 2007; Rojas and Dassargues,
2007).
While many studies agree that there has been a long-term trend
towards a wetter climate in the highland South Central Andes over
the past 3000 years (Abbott et al., 2003; Binford et al., 1997; Giralt
et al., 2008; Morales et al., 2009; Thompson et al., 1998), numerous
data sources document significant fluctuations in the moisture re-
gimes of both the highlands and the transverse valleys during the
407
Late Intermediate Period (Fig. 2a–c).2 Lacustrine sediment data
indicate that Lake Titicaca experienced century-scale lowstand lake
levels between AD 1030–1280 and again around AD 1350 before lake
levels began to rise again after AD 1450 (Abbott et al., 1997, 2003;
Binford et al., 1997; Bird et al., 2011). Annual ice accumulation on
the Quelccaya glacier, located in the eastern range of the Andes at
13°560 S, declined by about 15% between AD 1000–1100 and re-
mained at lower than average levels for the following three to four
centuries (Ortloff and Kolata, 1993; Thompson et al., 1985, 1994).
Particularly low levels of accumulation from AD 1240 to 1310 indi-
cate a period of intense drought. Quelccaya ice cap d18O levels, which
gauge precipitation and surface temperatures over the altiplano,
Amazon and equatorial Pacific, indicate that the Late Intermediate
Period was characterized on the whole by warm, dry conditions,
with protracted episodes of drought between AD 1060–1160 and
AD 1300–1380 (Thompson et al., 2003, Fig. 6). The period between
AD 1200 and 1300 was particularly variable, with stretches of
drought a decade or two in length alternating with a cooler and wet-
ter climate (Thompson et al., 2003). With the exception of two short
periods of below-average rainfall towards the end of the 15th and
beginning of the 16th century, wetter and more stable conditions
prevailed after AD 1420.
Given its close geographic proximity to northern Chile, the
Nevado Sajama, located at 18°060 S in the western Andean range
on the Bolivian side of the Chile-Bolivia border, provides the best
proxy for highland precipitation directly affecting the transverse
valleys during the Late Intermediate Period (see Ramírez et al.,
2003). Ice core data revealed elevated d18O levels suggestive of a
prolonged moisture shortfall stretching from AD 1100 to 1430,
with rainfall increasing after that time (Thompson et al., 2003,
Fig. 6). A pronounced period of aridity occurred between AD
1120 and 1200, while droughts a decade or more in length arose
multiple times in the 13th and 14th centuries (see Fig. 2a;
Thompson et al., 1998, 2003). Although the temporal resolution
is not as precise, isotope and diatom analysis of lake cores from
nearby Laguna Seca (18°110 S, 4500 masl) record a drop in lake lev-
els after AD 1100 due to low rainfall and/or increased lacustrine
evaporation, followed by a subsequent rise in lake levels after AD
1400 (Schwalb et al., 1999).
The Late Intermediate Period was clearly a time of variability,
unpredictability, and frequent droughts in the highlands, and peri-
ods of reduced high-altitude precipitation would have adversely
affected streamflow in northwestern Chile. Nonetheless, several
lines of evidence for the transverse valleys of the northern Atacama
(18°–21°S) document episodes of greater water availability that
are out of phase with the highland droughts (Fig. 2b). Botanical
analysis of 14 fossil rodent burrows collected in the Azapa Valley
(18°S) document an arid but relatively stable climate for the past
millennium and a half, punctuated by periods of greater precipita-
tion and proliferation of grasses and pre-puna annuals at AD 1200,
1320, 1410 and 1500 (Holmgren et al., 2008). Fossil springs and
wetland deposits, representative of periods in which an elevated
water table enabled groundwater to reach the surface, identified
2
These shifts in available moisture resulted from local factors, such as cyclical
changes in the ENSO, as well as global phenomena, such as the Medieval Climate
Anomaly (MCA) and the subsequent Little Ice Age (LIA; Bird et al., 2011; Mann et al.,
2009; Morales et al., 2009; Thompson et al., 1986, 2003, 2006). Lasting from AD 950
to 1250, the MCA was a period of warmer ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic,
conditions linked to reduced rainfall in the South Central Andean altiplano (Baker
et al., 2001; Ekdahl et al., 2008; Jiang et al., 2002). Beginning around AD 1400, a
variety of factors led to the decline of temperatures in the northern hemisphere.
These changes were reflected in increased precipitation in the South Central Andes
during the LIA (Mann et al., 2009; Thompson et al., 1986). The Late Intermediate
Period, beginning around AD 1000, was roughly coincident with the start of the MCA,
but also spanned the beginning of the LIA, as seen in increased moisture registered in
the Titicaca, Quelccaya, Nevado Sajama, and Laguna Seca climate records dating to the
early- to mid-15th centuries.
408 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421

Fig. 2. Schematic comparing drier and wetter phases of the Late Intermediate Period in the (a) highlands, left (Abbott et al., 1997, 2003; Binford et al., 1997; Bird et al., 2011;
Ortloff and Kolata, 1993; Ramírez et al., 2003; Schwalb et al., 1999; Thompson et al., 1985, 1994, 1998, 2003) and (b) transverse valleys, right (Holmgren et al., 2008; Nester
et al., 2007; Rech, 2001) of the South Central Andes (modeled on Fig. 6.2 in Latorre et al. (2005)); (c) geographic locations of the climate studies.

in the Higuera Valley (18.6°S) and Camiña Valley (19.5°S) yielded
AMS dates ranging from AD 825 to 1600 (Rech, 2001). Working
in the Pampa de Tamarugal approximately 150 km south of the
Tarapacá Valley, Nester and colleagues (2007, p. 19728) radiocar-
bon dated fluvial deposits of roots, leaves, and seeds from deep-
rooted plants to the period between AD 930 and 1300. Given the
lag between highland precipitation and groundwater recharge dis-
cussed above, these dates may reflect a time in which some coastal
valleys reaped the benefit of sub-surface hydrological resources
from earlier periods. The absence of any evidence for wetland
expansion during the Late Intermediate Period in the Guataguata
Valley, located immediately to the south of the Tarapacá Valley
at 20.1°S, is noteworthy because it demonstrates the degree of
environmental variability present even between the coastal valleys
during this time (Rech, 2001).
It is challenging to reconcile the sometimes contradictory body
of Late Intermediate Period climactic data derived from the South
Central Andean highlands and the transverse valleys (Fig. 2a and
b). As noted by several researchers (Betancourt et al., 2000; Gros-
jean et al., 2003), sources like soils, groundwater levels and lake
levels respond to decade- and century-scale averages over a large
spatial extent (e.g., an entire watershed region), while rodent bur-
rows and wetlands respond on annual- and decadal-scale changes
on a relatively smaller spatial scale. Nevertheless, it is clear that at
the most fundamental level, climate in the Late Intermediate Peri-
od was highly variable over both space and time, with areas expe-
riencing shortfall bordering areas with more favorable conditions.
How did communities in the hyper-arid Atacama region cope with
both the long-term and short-term hazards presented by this
unpredictable environment?
Settlement patterns and warfare in the Tarapacá Valley
The Late Intermediate Period in the Tarapacá region has been
divided into two phases: the Tarapacá Phase, spanning from AD
900 to 1250, and the Camiña Phase, the interval between
AD 1250 and the valley’s incorporation into the Inka empire after
AD 1450 (Uribe et al., 2007). The following discussion of the
changes in settlement patterns observed in the Tarapacá Valley de-
rives from full-coverage survey of approximately 20 km2 of the
lower portion of the valley (Fig. 3). The survey, conducted by Zori
(2011), identified a total of 163 sites (Table 2) that were dated
using a well-established regional ceramic chronology (Uribe
et al., 2007), changes in architectural styles, and a small number
of radiocarbon dates. Settlement pattern data speak to the social
and environmental stresses of the Late Intermediate Period and
the attempts of local populations to buffer against loss of both hu-
man lives and natural resources.
During the Tarapacá Phase, inhabitants of the Tarapacá Valley
interacted principally with populations in the coastal valleys be-
tween Pisagua and the Rio Loa, which shared a set of cultural prac-
tices and material culture known as the Pica–Tarapacá Complex
(Agüero, 1998; Agüero et al., 2006; Núñez, 1986a; Uribe, 2006; Ur-
ibe et al., 2007). Settlement data suggest that this period was rela-
tively peaceful in the Tarapacá Valley. Sites are situated primarily
in non-defensive locations chosen for their proximity to good agri-
cultural land. Although there had been a tradition of public plazas
in earlier sites dating to the Late Formative (500 BC–AD 500), such
as Caserones, open public spaces for gatherings, feasts or other rit-
ual activities are absent from habitation sites of the Tarapacá Phase
(Núñez, 1983; Zori, 2011). Instead, it appears that ritual activities
 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421 409

Fig. 3. The Quebrada de Tarapacá, showing the study area in the lower portion of the valley and the location of fortified sites, non-fortified domestic sites, and petroglyph
sites dated to the Camiña Phase (AD 1250–1450).

Table 2
Site types and counts for survey of lower Tarapacá Valley (Zori, 2011).

Site type (based on primary function of site) Number of examples identified in survey area
Habitation 51
Quebrada terrace 7
Strategic hilltop site 10
Strategic viewshed site 2
Strategic quebrada site 3
Strategic walls 2
Smelting site 18
Relic fields 5
Petroglyphs 10
Rock alignment 1
Circular rock feature 26
Pot break 4
Lithic scatter 3
Sitio de fiesta 2
Cemetery 19

were conducted mainly outside of residential settlements. The geoglyphs, cairns, and rock alignments surrounded by dense con-
Pampa del Tamarugal to the west of the valley appears to have centrations of smashed ceramic vessels (Fig. 4; Boytner, 2008).
been a particularly important locus of feasting, processions, and Transformations in settlement patterns and site layouts during
ceremonial events, as evidenced by numerous examples of the second half of the Tarapacá Phase and into the Camiña Phase

Fig. 4. Examples of sites with evidence of ritual activity located on the Pampa de Tamarugal (photos courtesy of R. Boytner).
410 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
Fig. 5. (a) Examples of strategic quebrada sites (TR4020 and TR4023), and (b) walls
protecting the ascent up the rear of the hill behind TR4020 and TR4023.
reflect an elevated threat of warfare in the Tarapacá Valley. This
was most likely an outcome of periodic drought conditions in the
highlands, which led to resource shortfalls and an impetus for raid-
ing groups in the lower valleys differentially impacted by the
droughts.3 A number of the smallest non-defensive habitation sites
of the Tarapacá Phase were abandoned at the beginning of the Cam-
iña Phase, as communities moved to inhabit progressively more
aggregated and defensible settlements. The earliest of these, desig-
nated as ‘‘strategic quebrada sites’’, are strategic in the sense that
they are tucked between hill spurs, difficult to see from the valley
floor, and backed by steep hillsides that form a natural defensive
barrier (Fig. 5a). The ascent up the rear of these hills is often pro-
tected by a series of walls, reducing vulnerability to surprise attack
3
During the Late Intermediate Period, populations throughout the highlands and
upper coastal valleys of the Andes—including Ecuador; the northern, central, and
southern Peruvian sierras; Bolivia; northern Chile; and northwestern Argentina—
constructed defensive settlements indicative of conflict on an unprecedented scale
(see Arkush, 2006 and Covey, 2008 for review). A number of causes have been
proposed to account for this widespread pattern, including the collapse of the Middle
Horizon (AD 500–1000) states of Tiwanaku and Wari, population migrations or
invasions (such as the movement of people in and around the Titicaca Basin or the
Inka expansion), and social/political factors, including the political and material
aspirations of war leaders and their followers (see Arkush, 2008 for review; Browman,
1994; Kolata, 1993; LeBlanc, 1981). Many of these explanations have been
discounted, or at least modified, with the addition of new radiocarbon dates and
refinement of regional ceramic chronologies. The timing of the construction of
fortified sites in the Tarapacá Valley, and elsewhere in the South Central Andes,
means that the increase in warfare was too late to be a direct outcome of the political
vacuum created by the collapse of Wari and Tiwanaku (around AD 1000), while
simultaneously too early to be a consequence of Inka expansion (after AD 1450).
While other factors (political aspirations of leaders, revenge, ‘‘cultures’’ of warfare)
also drive the participation of particular individuals in warfare, we suggest that
viewing warfare and the construction of defensive sites as two of numerous risk
management strategies to cope with a particularly variable period of environmental
fluctuation (see Ember and Ember, 1992, and climate data above) more convincingly
accounts for the scale of the pattern observed throughout the Andes, and the Tarapacá
Valley more particularly.
from above (Fig. 5b). While approximately the same size as earlier,
non-defensive sites—between 0.5-1 ha in area—strategic quebrada
sites were much more densely inhabited, as suggested by the clo-
sely-spaced domestic architecture. Some such sites yielded little
occupational debris and appear to have served as temporary refuges
for communities only when under attack, while others were inhab-
ited on a more permanent basis.
As the Camiña Phase progressed, the communities of the Tara-
pacá Valley abandoned the strategic quebrada sites and con-
structed ten walled settlements atop the highest hills in the
valley. The fortified hilltop sites, each approximately 1 ha in size,
comprise a range of defensive features that are significantly more
elaborate than the earlier strategic quebrada sites, including walls,
ditches, parapets, guard posts near entrances, and caches of sling
stones (Table 3). These changes in the settlement pattern and site
layout are accompanied by the appearance of detailed depictions of
warriors, weaponry, trophy heads, and battle scenes in the rock art
of Tarapacá and nearby valleys (Fig. 6). Together, these data sug-
gest that the risk of inter-site warfare increased in severity and/
or frequency throughout the Camiña Phase.
Analysis of the settlement distribution in the valley indicates
that few habitation sites were more than 1.5 km from a fortified
site, and that multiple communities likely pooled their risk of at-
tack by cooperating in the construction, maintenance, and use of
the shared hilltop settlements (see Fig. 3). In addition, there are
discernable clusters of strategic hilltop settlements near Tarapacá
Viejo and the modern-day town of Pachica, groups of sites that
were perhaps allied with one another for mutual defense. There
is a high degree of intervisibility between fortified settlements in
these clusters. Because of the curvature of the valley, however,
some of the hilltop settlements had a good view of neither the
nearby fortifications nor the valley floor. These sites are frequently
associated with viewshed or lookout sites that would have facili-
tated inter-site communication between allies as well as greater
vigilance against enemy attacks (see Table 3).
Valley communities also employed strategies of agricultural
diversification and extensification to minimize the risk of shortfalls
during the Camiña Phase. This is exemplified by the construction of
small-scale agricultural terraces in the dry washes on the valley
sides, designated as ‘‘quebrada terrace sites’’ to distinguish them
from terraces built on more open stretches of hillside. According
to Dillehay and Kolata (2004, p. 4328), who identified similar ter-
race systems in the prehistoric Jequetepeque Valley of northern
Peru, ‘‘[t]hese flexible agricultural systems did not require large la-
bor or technological inputs’’, allowing local populations to take
advantage of periods of greater runoff from highland rainfall to in-
crease agricultural production by cultivating land away from the
valley floor and subject to slightly different environmental condi-
tions. Although they were likely used for the same crop inventory
grown elsewhere in the valley, the quebrada terraces constitute an
effort towards spatial diversification. In addition, because they
were used in conjunction with fields in the valley bottom, the
new quebrada terrace sites represent a form of extensification,
bringing previously unused lands under cultivation.
Application of the approaches of extensification and diversifica-
tion was modified by the threat of conflict during the Camiña
Phase. The close physical relationship between the strategic defen-
sive sites and many of the quebrada terrace sites in the Tarapacá
Valley (Table 4) suggests that they were also part of a strategy used
by certain communities to bring cultivated food resources into pro-
tected and defensible locations. Dillehay and Kolata similarly ob-
serve that opportunistic agricultural terrace systems in remote
areas of the Jequetepeque Valley during periods of political frag-
mentation may reflect a strategy of ‘‘conflict avoidance’’ (2004, p.
4328). The fact that ceramics from the quebrada terrace sites date
exclusively to the Late Intermediate Period, in addition to the
 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421 411

Table 3
Camiña phase (AD 1250–1450) strategic hilltop sites and their defensive features identified in the study area.

Site Hilltop location Wall(s) Ditch(es) Parapets Guard posts Sling stones cache(s) Associated with viewshed or lookout
TR4005 X X X
TR4007 X X X X
TR4015 X X X
TR4071 X X X X X
TR4112 X X X X X
TR4122 X X
TR4132 X X X
Carora X X X
TR1024 X X X
TR1052 X X X

Fig. 6. Examples of rock art motifs depicting individuals, possibly warriors, some of which appear to be engaging in hand-to-hand combat.

Table 4
All quebrada terrace sites from the Camiña Phase (AD 1250–1450), and their spatial association with near-by defensive sites.

Quebrada terrace site Association with strategic site Distance between sites
TR4020 Part of strategic quebrada site TR4020 Within TR4020
TR4023 Part of strategic quebrada site TR4023 Within TR4023
TR4047 None N/A
TR4058 None N/A
TR4061 None N/A
TR4065 Side of hilltop where TR4071 is located 30 m from edge of TR4071
TR4072 Side of hilltop where TR4071 is located 10 m from edge of TR4071
TR4090 Side of hilltop where TR4071 is located 150 m from edge of TR4071
TR4097 Adjacent to strategic quebrada site TR4107 35 m from edge of TR4107

spatial association between the terraces and defensive sites of the
Camiña Phase, supports the notion that such constructions were a
response to the elevated risk of conflict during this period.
Strategies to cope with intra-community social conflict and the risk of
resource shortfalls
Domestic structures are densely packed in the fortified settle-
ments of the Camiña Phase, ranging from 100 to 200 structures
per ha2 (Adán and Urbina, 2005, 2006; Zori, 2011). This represents
a degree of population aggregation unprecedented in the Tarapacá
Valley. In a tense environment in which the threat of attack made
gaining access to outlying ritual sites increasingly dangerous, pla-
zas and public spaces within in the settlements played a vital role
in maintaining intra-site relations and facilitating the cooperation
of different social segments sharing close quarters.
Plazas are generally absent from earlier Tarapacá Phase settle-
ments and the non-defensive sites Camiña Phase occupied when-
ever the threat of conflict was low. Large public spaces are found,
however, at a number of the region’s fortified hilltop sites. In the
lower Tarapacá Valley, one such plaza is found at site TR4007.
The highest portion of this walled hilltop site has been artificially
leveled, cleared of rocks, and delineated by upright stones
(Fig. 7a and b). The plaza at TR4007 shares these characteristics
with plazas found at a number of other fortified sites in northern
Chile, including Chusmisa, Camiña, and Jamajuga (see Fig. 1;
Adán and Urbina, 2005, 2006; Adán et al., 2007; Urbina and
Adán, 2006). Feasting activities at TR4007 are suggested by an in-
creased prevalence of decorated bowls and serving vessels in the
vicinity of the plaza in comparison with the rest of the site:
although based on unsystematic surface collection, the ratio of
decorated bowls and jars to undecorated vessels was 3:1 in the
area surrounding the plaza, while it averaged closer to 2:1
throughout the rest of TR4007 (Zori, 2011). Open spaces found at
the fortified sites played an important role in building a sense of
community and solidarity in the face of potential external threats,
and served as places for communal rituals, feasts, and other activ-
ities that mitigated the risk of social conflict between individuals
from the different groups inhabiting the defensive hilltop sites.
Plazas were likely the place of periodic food-sharing events, one
of the ways that a community can pool the risk of subsistence
shortfalls posed by an unpredictable environment. In other cases,
individual households may have practiced risk retention through
household-level storage of staple foods, observed archaeologically
412 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421

Fig. 7. (a) Plaza located at the highest portion of TR4007, and (b) upright stones defining the edges of plaza in TR4007.

30

25

20

15

10

0
TR4007 Jamajuga Camina Chusmisa TR1024 Carora TR4112
% Storage 2.9 2.96 9.01 10 9.8 9.5 16
Upper CL (%) 10.3 7.42 11.6 16.8 15.7 22.7 29.2
Lower CL (%) 0.35 0.81 6.82 5.25 5.58 2.64 7.16

Fig. 8. Prevalence of storage structures in defensive sites with plazas (closed diamonds) and without plazas (open diamonds), calculated using a Clopper–Pearson 95%
confidence interval (data for Jamajuga, Camiña, Chusmisa, and Carora drawn from Adán and Urbina, 2005, 2006).

as small structures—with a surface area of 0–5 m2 (see Adán and
Urbina, 2006)—that were part of or adjacent to domestic
architecture.4,5 Architectural analysis indicates that fortified settle-
ments in the Tarapacá Valley and surrounding region fell along a
continuum between a possible emphasis on food-sharing, as sug-
gested by the presence of open spaces or plazas, and household man-
agement of subsistence risk, as indicated by the prevalence of small
spaces used for storage. Using a Clopper–Pearson 95% confidence
interval, sampling error seems to account for most of the variation
in the proportions of storage versus non-storage structures recorded
for the different sites in the survey area (Fig. 8). There is, however,
some variation in the extent to which residents of the various forti-
fied sites with plazas relied on self-retention of risk in the form of
storage. Given the option of both strategies—storage and/or food
sharing—the lower proportion of storage structures seen at TR4007
and Jamajuga support the idea that residents of these settlements
may have relied more heavily on risk pooling in a plaza context than
4 high level of perceived threat and even outright warfare, excavation
Structures of this size that were circular, sub-circular, or oval in shape were
excluded from the analysis because they are often associated with human remains,
evidencing their function as tombs. This is supported by analysis of two dedicated
cemetery sites in the region, Laymisiña and the southwest sector of Chusmisa, where
71.5% and 51.85% of the tombs at the respective mortuary sites were circular, sub-
circular, or oval in shape (Adán and Urbina, 2005, 2006).
5
Community-level storage, indicative of a second form of risk pooling, has not
been observed in the Tarapacá region during the Late Intermediate Period (see e.g.,
Adán and Urbina, 2005, 2006).
did occupants of Camiña and Chusmisa. Despite the presence of a
plaza, the percentage of household-controlled storage structures at
Camiña and Chumisa more closely approximated the higher propor-
tions seen at non-plaza sites such as TR1024 and Carora, indicating a
greater reliance on self-assumption of subsistence risk at these sites.
At the upper end of the spectrum, the site TR4112 shows a distinctly
higher, although not statistically significant, prevalence of storage
structures than either of the other fortified sites without plazas. In
all, these data from northern Chile suggest that communities even
within the same region or valley may have perceived distinct risk
potentials, moving some to depend more heavily on storage and oth-
ers to opt for food-sharing in a ritual context.
Ritual and interregional exchange in a dangerous world
Although the second half of the Late Intermediate Period was a
time in which communities in the Tarapacá Valley experienced a
and survey data suggest that it was simultaneously characterized
by intensive economic exchange that far exceeded levels of trade
in preceding periods. Interregional exchange of staple foods and/
or prestige items is a form of risk pooling (see Halstead and O’Shea,
1989a, p. 4) in that durable goods from a drought-stricken region
can be exchanged for food from areas less adversely affected. As
one of several viable alternatives to raiding in times of resource
 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421 413

Fig. 9. Fragments of decorated preparation and serving wares brought into the Quebrada de Tarapacá from the highlands to the east.

uncertainty, trade was likely an important component of risk man-

agement during the Late Intermediate Period.
While some goods may have arrived via llama caravans or other
forms of exchange, iconographic data drawn from various Tarapacá
Valley rock art sites suggest that one means by which valley pop-
ulations obtained non-local goods was through participation in
inter-community ritual gatherings. Rock art motifs indicate inter-
action between individuals and groups with different economic,
geographic, and possibly ethnic affiliations. Considering such evi-
dence in light of available ethnographic data, the physical and
iconographic features of secluded rock art sites suggest that such
locales provided symbolically charged but politically neutral meet-
ing places where diverse groups, coming together under the pre-
mise of shared ritual objectives, could exchange the products of
their respective regions. In the process of obtaining valued comes-
tible and non-food items, ritual participants ameliorated social
tensions, strengthened their ties to one another, and reaffirmed
Fig. 10. Rock art site TR1304.
future obligations to engage in trade. In the following sections,
we outline the artifactual and iconographic evidence for increased
contact and trade with non-local groups in the Late Intermediate of the Tarapacá Valley. Recovery of highland obsidian, spines from
Period. We then conclude with a discussion of the evidence for high-altitude cacti, colored feathers from the Amazon to the east,
ritualized trade in the Tarapacá Valley. fish and shellfish from the coast, and ceramic vessels from the Ari-
ca polities to the north suggest that interregional trade was an
Evidence for interregional exchange essential component of the Camiña Phase economy (Zori, 2011).
Results of test excavations at the site of Tarapacá Viejo (TR49; Exchange with the ethnic groups in the highlands to the east,
see Fig. 3), consisting of seven 1  2 m units and one 1  4.5 m including the Carangas, Lípez, and Quillacas, created a dramatic in-
trench, indicate that non-local goods became increasingly preva- flux of highland ceramic vessels (Uribe, 2006; Uribe et al., 2007;
lent as the Late Intermediate Period progressed (Zori, 2011). Prod- Zori, 2011). Primarily comprised of serving jars, bowls, and keros
ucts and ceramics from outside the valley are similarly found at the or drinking vessels, the highland wares are distinct from earlier lo-
majority of Late Intermediate Period sites identified during survey cal styles in their comparatively elaborate decoration and
414 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421

Fig. 11. Depictions of Late Intermediate Period tunic styles in the rock art of Tarapacá Valley: (a) a trapezoidal tunic with curved warps (Agüero, 2008), (b) individuals
wearing curved-warp tunics in the rock art of TR1304, (c) a tie-dyed tunic (Cases and Agüero, 2004), and (d) an individual portray in a tie-dyed tunic in the rock art of TR1304.

burnishing (Fig. 9). Preliminary analysis of ceramic data using the

Shannon Weaver Diversity Index demonstrates that Late Interme-
diate Period assemblages from sites throughout the transverse val-
leys of northern Chile display statistically greater ceramic diversity
than in the preceding Late Formative and Middle Horizon or subse-
quent Late Horizon periods (Brant, 2009a).6 Such findings are con-
sistent with increased trade and/or other forms of social interaction,
such as ritual activity, with a wider range of partners.
Albeit only ancillary evidence of trade, analysis of petroglyph
iconography from two Tarapacá Valley rock art sites, TR1304 and
TR1305 (see Fig. 3), corroborates the notion that Tarapacá Valley
inhabitants had more frequent interactions with outside groups
during the Late Intermediate Period (Brant, 2009b). TR1304 and
TR1305 are isolated rock art sites without closely associated habi-
tation sites, and are comprised of hundreds of images pecked into
Fig. 12. ‘‘Ritual dancers’’ petroglyph from TR1304 showing individuals with distinct
the steep rock walls of two narrow drainages (Fig. 10). Although re- headdresses.
moved spatially from domestic settlements, in both cases access to
the locales would have been regulated by people inhabiting sites
located at the opening of the ravines where the petroglyph sites
styles represented at TR1304 are the trapezoidal tunic, trapezoidal
are situated. A wide range of scenes and individual motifs at these
tunic with curved warps, and the tie-dyed tunic (Fig. 11). All of the
sites demonstrate a familiarity with people and animals of the
styles depicted in the rock art correspond to textiles recovered
highlands, coastal zone, and other river valleys of northern Chile.
from Late Intermediate Period sites throughout northern Chile
The geographic affiliations of humans depicted in Tarapacá Val-
(Agüero, 1998, 2000, 2008; Agüero et al., 1997; Cases and Agüero,
ley rock art can be gleaned through an examination of the attire
2004). Depictions of tie-dyed tunics are also found in the rock art of
and activities represented. Motifs clearly portraying different tunic
Rio Loa, where they are associated with individuals engaged in car-
and headdress styles – the material correlates of Andean identity
avan trade (Berenguer et al., 1985, p. 98). The different headdresses
construction – evince the relationships forged between individuals
worn by individuals depicted in the petroglyphs of TR1304 (Fig. 12)
or groups of distinct ethnic or cultural affiliations. Among the tunic
have been found archaeologically in Late Intermediate Period con-
texts (Berenguer et al., 1985) and likely indicate perceived differ-
6
This analysis used raw ceramic sherd counts taken from Uribe et al. (2007) and ences in the ethnic or occupational identity of the individuals
Zori (2011). rendered. Activities specifically associated with particular
 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
environmental zones also appear in the rock art. Despite the virtual
absence of scenes showing agriculturalists, an occupation likely
associated with valley inhabitants, numerous depictions of fisher-
men (coastal) and llama pastoralists (highland) were identified at
TR1304 and other rock art sites in the valley (Fig. 13).
Examination of petroglyph iconography from the two rock art
sites also reveals familiarity with fauna originating in diverse envi-
ronments. Highland birds, most likely Rhea tarapacensis, whose
geographic distribution is restricted to zones above 3500 m, are
juxtaposed with depictions of coastal birds (for example, Limosa fe-
doa and Pelecanus thagus) and other marine elements at site
TR1304 (Fig. 14). The portrayal of coastal and highland birds in
the Late Intermediate Period petroglyphs is all the more striking
when compared to the earlier, more heavily repatinated glyphs
at TR1304. Previous phases of rock art production focused exclu-
sively on the local fauna of the valley– such as condors and scorpi-
ons – species frequently observed by Brant while documenting the
petroglyphs of TR1304 and TR1305. The shift in focus from locally
occurring species in earlier phases of production to the depiction of
fauna and people of different ecological zones during the Late
Intermediate Period highlights the increasingly interregional nat-
ure of social relations in Tarapacá Valley during this period. More
generally, an increase in the production of rock art during the Late
Intermediate Period characterizes all of northern Chile, and is likely
indicative of the important role played by rupestral imagery in
communicating information between disparate groups (Briones,
2006; Vilches and Cabello, 2006, 2007).
Though the archaeological literature on exchange in Northern
Chile tends to focus almost exclusively on the movement of goods
by caravans of llama pastoralists, the data from Tarapacá Valley are
more ambiguous regarding the precise mechanism through which
valley populations obtained non-local products. For example, the
increase in highland ceramics in the Tarapacá Valley has at least
two and possibly overlapping implications. First, it could be that
these durable highland goods were traded to valley populations
in exchange for maize and other food goods grown in the valleys
by dint of their more stable water supply. Second, the iconography
of the rock art sites and the fact that the highland wares are mostly
ceremonial hints at the possibility of a common ritual sphere and
suggests that ceramics could also have been carried by ritual
participants who used, traded, and sometimes discarded vessels
during relatively large-scale ritual events conducted in the trans-
verse valleys.
Ritualized exchange in the Tarapacá Valley
As both a form of risk pooling and a means of negotiating and
reinforcing critical alliances, interregional trade during the Late
Intermediate Period was a necessity made increasingly dangerous
Fig. 13. Depictions of (a) fishermen and (b) llama pastoralists in the petroglyphs of TR1304.
415
by the unstable social climate. Ethnographic studies of trading sys-
tems in many societies suggest that trade routes and relationships
can exist outside of political organizations and sometimes despite
the presence of conflict between the parent societies of trading
partners (Chalfin, 2001; Oka and Kusimba, 2008). Nonetheless,
the risk of inter-community conflict presented by the Late Interme-
diate Period may have necessitated forms of trade that were more
ritualized than in preceding or subsequent periods.
Contemporary ethnographic data support the assertion that
trade between Tarapacá Valley residents and outside groups was
likely intertwined with ritual activities. The integration of religious
and economic calendars is a common theme throughout the South
Central Andes (Poole, 1982, p. 101). In the Andes, inter-community
rites incorporate the veneration of anthropomorphic landscapes
(Salomon and Urioste, 1991; Sikkink, 1997), burial rituals (Hop-
kins, 1982), pilgrimages and processions (Poole, 1982; Sallnow,
1991), and/or ritual battles known as tinku (Hopkins, 1982; Paer-
regaard, 1992; Sallnow, 1991; Sikkink, 1997). As members of vari-
ous factions come together under the premises of ritual obligation
and mutual concern for crop and livestock reproduction, partici-
pants exchange goods, simultaneously reinforcing their ties to
one another and obtaining access to needed products from other
areas (Sikkink, 1997, p. 184).
Andean ethnographic data similarly demonstrate that people
and products originating in different ecological zones are perceived
as having complementary attributes essential to the success of reli-
gious rituals (Sikkink, 1997). Divisions of complementarity be-
tween ritual participants are often expressed in terms of hanan
and hurin, terms that refer to the upper and lower halves of a com-
munity or territory (Hopkins, 1982; Urton, 1993). In the absence of
spatial distinctions, however, participating groups are often under-
stood as differing according to ecological zone of origin, ethnic
affiliation, or based on the status of local versus newcomer (Allen,
1988; Parsons et al., 1997; Paerregaard, 1992; Sallnow, 1991,
p.300). Incorporating people that differ along such lines, multi-
group ritual gatherings frequently occur at the territorial bound-
aries between two or more communities, often along established
trade routes (Allen, 1988; Hopkins, 1982, p. 171; Parsons et al.,
1997, p. 336; Poole, 1982, p. 94; Sallnow, 1991, p. 298).
We propose that Tarapacá Valley rock art sites such as TR1304
and TR1305 were the focus of ritual and economic activities similar
to those described in the Andean ethnographic literature. Icono-
graphic and physical characteristics of TR1304 and TR1305 suggest
compelling similarities between contemporary multi-group rites
and those which transpired at the rock art sites of Tarapacá Valley,
with parallels seen specifically in the identities of ritual partici-
pants depicted, the types of activities carried out at the sites, and
in the physical and geographic settings of such gatherings.
416 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421

Fig. 14. Depictions of highland and coastal birds in the rock art of Tarapacá Valley: (a) Rhea tarapacensis (b) Limosafedoa, and (c) Pelecanusthagus.

Rupestral glyphs in the Tarapacá Valley serve as a record of the
diverse but complementary groups that congregated at valley rock
art sites to engage in ritual and exchange. The different clothing,
economic activities, and fauna portrayed in the petroglyphs of
TR1304 and TR1305 seem to indicate that divisions between ritual
participants were based on distinct ethnic, occupational or ecolog-
ical affiliations.
Comparison of features of the landscape near TR1304 and
TR1305 with ethnographic descriptions of multi-groups rites pro-
vides insight into the specific types of ritual activity conducted at
the rock art sites. Located roughly 30 m away from TR1305 and
facing the rock art site, a large boulder with numerous human-
made cupules likely served as a receptacle for liquid offerings.
The offering of food and drink in honor of powerful features of
the landscape is a ritual act still practiced by contemporary Andean
peoples (Salomon and Urioste, 1991; Sikkink, 1997) and suggests
similar beliefs and rites may have been directed at the rock art sites
of the Tarapacá Valley. Pot breaks and smaller petroglyph sites
found along the path between the main valley and TR1304 indicate
the sacralization of the landscape leading up to the site. The se-
quence of smaller sacred locales leading up to TR1304 is consistent
with use of this route for processions, an activity frequently noted
 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
in the ethnographic literature on inter-community rituals in the
Andes (Poole, 1982; Sallnow, 1991).
That intermediate valley rock art sites were the focus of mul-
ti-community rites is also indicated by glyphic representations of
individuals with interlocked hands, such as those found at sites
TR1304 (see Fig. 12), TR47 (Núñez, 1986b), and Tamentica (Val-
ley of Guatacondo; Briones, 1999). In the Andes, similar images
have been interpreted as depictions of ritual dancers (see e.g.,
Donnan, 1982). The various headdress styles displayed in the
dancing motif correspond to headwear known from various Late
Intermediate Period archaeological contexts (Berenguer et al.,
1985), lending additional weight to the idea that this scene
may be based on actual events conducted at the rock art sites.
Along with feasting and the consumption of alcoholic beverages,
dancing is an integral component of celebrations throughout the
Andean region.
The performance of contemporary multi-group rites on the geo-
graphic boundaries between participant communities further but-
tresses the assertion that the Tarapacá Valley rock art sites were
the focus of ritualized trade events. The Tarapacá Valley, and the
other transverse valleys of northern Chile, constituted an impor-
tant and long-standing interface between the coastal and highland
zones. These are the very areas in which production of rock art in
northern Chile rose steadily throughout the Late Intermediate Per-
iod (Briones, 2006; Vilches and Cabello, 2006, 2007), and where
isolated rock art sites like TR1304 and TR1305 have been identified
archaeologically. The temporal and spatial correlation between
growing interregional trade and the proliferation of rock art in
the intermediate valleys is consistent with the ethnographic obser-
vation that trade and ritual are often intertwined. Such a model is
further supported by the prevalence of marine and highland rock
art motifs and the presence of both highland and coastal artifacts
in Late Intermediate Period sites and excavation contexts through-
out the central valleys. The distinctive geographic patterning of
rock art sites attests to the important role played by rock art and
rock art sites in facilitating trade and mediating the risks posed
by uneasy encounters between various permutations of local and
non-local groups.
While large open spaces located within fortified settlements
were the focus of intra-community gatherings in the Late Interme-
diate Period, interactions between Tarapacá and non-local groups
would have required a different venue, somewhere removed from
potentially vulnerable domestic settlements. In the Tarapacá Val-
ley, isolated rock art sites like TR1304 and TR1305 seem to have
served such a purpose. The spectacular natural setting of the sites,
combined with their symbolic elaboration through the rock art
images, created powerfully ritualized loci for interaction between
groups from different eco-zones. Ritualization of economic interac-
tions within the context of the environmental variability present
during the Late Intermediate Period may have served to offset
the risk of conflict between groups beset by constantly shifting
relations of peace and discord, but which nonetheless depended
on trade to obtaining essential resources held by their non-local
counterparts.
Conclusions: risk management in Northern Chile during the
Late Intermediate Period
Hazards – both social and environmental – have dramatic but
often uneven consequences for both past and contemporary socie-
ties, sometimes setting regions on altogether different historical
trajectories. Studying the ramifications of hazards such as drought
and conflict requires archaeologists to recognize that different re-
gions, and even different communities within the same geographic
area, had distinct combinations of vulnerabilities and advantages
417
that shaped the strategies actively employed in dealing with risk.
In addition, the hazards experienced by one group might alter
the calculus of risk experienced by those in adjacent regions, even
if not impacted by the same risks directly. The interplay of such
considerations is relevant to the study of human-environment
and human-human interactions across the globe and throughout
history.
A growing body of data from the South Central Andes suggests
that the Late Intermediate Period was a time of considerable cli-
matic variability across geographic space, creating distinct constel-
lations of environmental and social hazards for the prehistoric
agricultural and agro-pastoral populations of the region’s ecologi-
cal zones. Examination of settlement patterns, site layout, ceramic
and artifact assemblages, and rock art data from the Tarapacá Val-
ley provides insight into the strategies used by valley communities
to manage the manifold hazards posed by drought and social
conflict.
At least some—but not all—groups in the Tarapacá Valley coped
with periodically diminished highland runoff through both diversi-
fication and extensification of food production, specifically through
the construction of small agricultural terraces in areas that had not
previously seen cultivation (see Table 4). Risk assumption and risk
pooling are two other strategies for coping with subsistence risk
employed to varying degrees by different communities in the val-
ley. Architectural analysis of fortified hilltop sites in the Tarapacá
Valley and several of the surrounding valleys demonstrates that
households in some communities exercised greater dependence
on private storage, a form of self-insurance against subsistence
shortfalls. Individual households would have had the advantage
of controlling and even concealing their own stored resources for
use as necessary. As noted by Marston (2011, p. 193), this may re-
flect the perception on the part of community members that vari-
ability was likely to be greater from year to year than across the
geographic distribution of food resources available to community
members at any one time. By contrast, other communities relied
more heavily on some degree of risk pooling, particularly through
supra-household food sharing during ritual events and feasts. This
is consistent with evidence that a smaller percentage of the struc-
tures were used for household-level storage at sites with open pla-
zas, places where commensal consumption may have taken place.
It is notable but perhaps not surprising that different communities
and even individual households responded to similar environmen-
tal conditions with distinct combinations of risk-management
strategies.
Although communities in the Tarapacá Valley would have expe-
rienced decreased streamflow during highland droughts, they were
buffered in part by springs, wetland seeps, and other forms of basal
discharge from the region’s subterranean aquifers, recharged dur-
ing wetter periods on an inter-annual, decadal, and centennial
scale. The environmental capacity to resist the severest impacts
of drought, however, may have made the valley populations sub-
ject to a different set of social hazards related to conflict. Settle-
ment data suggests that throughout the second half of the Late
Intermediate Period, communities in the Tarapacá Valley were en-
gaged in increasing levels of inter-group conflict, most likely with
highland populations attempting to transfer their risk of drought-
driven subsistence shortfalls onto valley populations through
raiding. Communities in the transverse valleys faced the threat of
depredations by highland peoples in crisis through risk-prevention
tactics – including shifting settlements to increasingly defensible
locations and investing in more elaborate defensive architecture
– and risk-pooling strategies, such as aggregation of multiple com-
munities and the formation of alliances. Even the implementation
of these strategies varied between communities, as exemplified by
the differential distribution of specific defensive features between
the fortified sites (see Table 3). Improving field defensibility and
418 C. Zori, E. Brant / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31 (2012) 403–421
diversifying field location were additional means by which at least
some valley inhabitants further met the dual challenges presented
by highland drought and increased raiding.
The potential for intra-societal conflict often increases during
periods of conflict with external groups. Within-group tensions
would have been exacerbated by the congregation of multiple
communities in the densely occupied hilltop fortified sites. Some
groups inhabiting hilltop fortified sites opted to construct plazas,
a setting for intra-community rituals that would have strength-
ened cohesion between the disparate groups aggregated in close
quarters. Such rituals would have simultaneously served to foster
a shared in-group identity, facilitate cooperation, and cultivate
the emotive mindset necessary to ensure martial success (Ham-
mond and Axelrod, 2006; LeVine and Campbell, 1972). Emplace-
ment of public spaces for ritual activities within many of the
fortified sites speaks to a fundamental shift in location of ceremo-
nial events, which took place primarily on the pampa to the west of
the Tarapacá Valley during more peaceful periods in the valley’s
history, as a response to the growing threat of conflict.
Although discussions of the Late Intermediate Period in the An-
des frequently highlight the heightened levels of conflict and war-
fare, excavation and survey data from the Tarapacá Valley show
that communities from the region’s different ecozones were none-
theless engaged in significant levels of economic exchange. Indeed,
the tense and constantly shifting social milieu may have made
such trade even more vital, as communities strove to establish
and solidify alliances with both in-valley neighbors and outside
groups. The importance of trade would have been further bolstered
by its fundamental role in managing risk of localized shortfalls. Un-
der such circumstances, interactions between groups would have
become increasingly formalized and ritualized to countervail the
risk of conflict while simultaneously ensuring access to vital non-
local resources.
While plazas circumscribed within the fortified sites epitomize
the nature of the relationships realized therein, so too do the are-
nas where interactions between local and non-local groups took
place. Located outside the bounds of any particular community,
rock art sites served as a neutral ground. The highly symbolical
nature of these sites is evidenced in their dramatic natural settings
and the side-by-side inscription of images relevant to the diverse
groups interacting there. It is noteworthy that these types of rock
art sites date primarily to the conflict-ridden Late Intermediate
Period, a time of increased interregional trade, and appear to have
been more or less limited to the transverse valleys. Their restricted
temporal and geographic distribution and the nature of the iconog-
raphy at the rock art sites testify to the integral role played by
these locations in facilitating economic and ceremonial interaction
between groups inhabiting the highlands, valleys, and coast.
We suggest that the belief systems underwriting ritual activities
in the Tarapacá Valley served as a form of risk management in their
own right, in that they created a religious-ritual basis for continued
interaction both within groups inhabiting the same site and be-
tween groups with disparate economic and even ethnic affiliations.
Ethnohistoric and contemporary Andean ethnographic data on
multi-group rituals suggest that people and products gathered
from diverse ecological zones are perceived as having complemen-
tary attributes that, only when combined, adequately fulfill the
immediate cosmological objectives—usually linked to fertility—of
religious rituals (Hopkins, 1982; Paerregaard, 1992; Poole, 1982;
Sallnow, 1987, 1991; Sikkink, 1997). In the Andes, the need for
continued interaction between populations of variant ethnic and
economic affiliations is born out in obligatory ritual participation
and the notion that religious rites are ineffective should one com-
ponent of the religious-economic unit be absent. In an environ-
ment where the coast, valleys, and highlands were impacted
differently by climatic variability, rites such as those proposed
for the Tarapacá Valley rock art sites mitigated the risks presented
by inter-group conflict by fixing and formalizing relationships of
ecological complementarity into a ritual repertoire.
Acknowledgments
This research was conducted under the umbrella of the Tara-
pacá Valley Archaeological Project and Proyecto FONDECYT
1030923. Funding and additional support were provided by the
National Science Foundation, the UCLA Institute of American Cul-
tures, the UCLA Latin American Studies Center, CSUN Department
of Grad Studies, CSUN Association of Retired Faculty Members,
the UCLA Department of Anthropology, and the UCLA Friends of
Archaeology. Our deepest appreciation to Ran Boytner and Mauri-
cio Uribe for facilitating our research under their respective per-
mits. Many thanks also to Maria Cecilia Lozada, Ioanna Kakulli,
Hans Barnard, Cathy Costin, Lucy Cogswell Stewart, Scotti Norman,
Estefanía Vidal, and the students of the Universidad de Chile and
the UCLA field school. Invaluable comments on earlier drafts were
provided by Charles Stanish, Elizabeth Arkush, Fred Damon, Fraser
D. Neiman and Davide Zori; any remaining errors are, of course, our
own.
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