PRESENCIA DE UN CENTRO CEREMONIAL FORMATIVO EN LA CIRCUMPUNA DE ATACAMA

Abstract

Archaeological evidence of the Tulán-54 site is discussed with a special emphasis on the central temple. Situated in the Tulán transect, which stretches over15 km southeast of the Salar de Atacama basin, this site is part of a system of three large synchronous Early Formative settlements (3450 to 2370 BP cal.). Each settlement presents different functions associated with hunting, herding, gathering and subsidiary horticulture. The Tulán-54 site emerges as a religious axis with a strong local component oriented to the groups who occupied the ravine within a context of macroregional networks. The temple is not only characterized by its monumental architecture and children's burials, but also by the funerary offerings, the incorporation of rock art as well as by the repetition of ritual events, the remains of which filled the temple in a span of 200 years. The reiteration of ceremonial events would have been oriented towards the social cohesion of groups with a wide mobility that recurrently occupied the settlements in the Tulán ravine, where the beginning of inequality and the different forms of production would have been driven through the ritual hegemony of local leadership.