This paper presents the Iluga Túmulos site in the Tarapacá region, northern Chile. The site is located in Pampa Iluga, south to Cerro Unitas and west to the Tarapacá ravine, where we can observe the geoglyph Giant of Tarapacá. The site covers thousands of hectares with field crops and irrigation systems (chacras) associated with a notorious complex of tumuli, public and domestic architecture. In between the field crops, 122 tumuli are reported, forming specific types of groups. We also observed activity areas with and without architecture. Mud architecture structures stand out among the constructions, showing different shapes such as circular, rectangular and square ones that probably had multiple public functions. This particular palimpsest distribution of monuments and portable and non-portable evidence extends from the Formative Period's beginnings until the Incas arrival and Colonial times. We proposed interpretations of this productive and ceremonial complex from an Andean memory and social perspectives.
Keywords:
Tarapaca, monuments, archaelogical palimpsest, Andean stories, social memories
Uribe, M., Agüero, C., Cabello, G., García, M., Herrera, M. J., Izaurieta, R., Maldonado, A., Mandakovic, V., Saintenoy, T., Santana-Sagredo, F., Urrutia, F., & Vidal-Elgueta, A. (2020). Pampa Iluga and “chacras” of the ancestors (Tarapacá, northern Chile): tensions between materialities and ontologies in archaeology. Revista Chilena De Antropología, (42), 371–398. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-1472.2020.60497
