8.3.5. Pottery and lithic production

Few correlations were noted between pottery distributions in the 2003 Upper Colca survey and obsidian production and circulation. Pottery is scarce in the Maymeja area of the Chivay source. Most of the diagnostic Prehispanic ceramics in the Maymeja area belong to the LIP and Late Horizon, and this occupation probably reflects the presence of resources like pasture and water, and the construction of mortuary structures in the Maymeja area. Pottery resembling the "Chiquero" style described by Wernke (2003) as Formative was not encountered at all in the obsidian source area, or even in the Blocks 4 and 5 vicinity of the source. Pottery resembling the Chiquero style was common in Block 2 on the puna, but the only site in Block 3 with this pottery was Taukamayo [A02-26], a site that is interpreted here as a stop for non-local caravans passing through the upper Colca valley. Another factor linking Taukamayo with Block 2 was that Taukamayo contained the highest density of obsidian debris in Block 3, where obsidian was abundant.

While there are spatial associations between Chiquero and Formative Period sites in the main Colca valley, as documented by Wernke (2003), testing at Taukamayo revealed that this style of pottery persisted into later levels. These sherds were found in A02-26u1 test unit in levels dating to AD650-780, over 250 years into the Tiwanaku period used by Stanish in the Titicaca Basin, and corresponding with Williams' (2001) dates for the first Wari occupation of Cerro Baúl. In the main Colca valley, Wernke notes that Chiquero pottery is replaced by the red-slipped Colca "Middle Horizon" style that includes Wari influences in characteristics such decoration and the constricted, cumbrous bowl form (Malpass and De la Vera Cruz 1986;Wernke 2003: 468-469). One possible explanation for the continued use of Chiquero-like pottery in the seventh century AD in the upper Colca near Callalli, while the diagnostic Middle Horizon ware began to be used in the main Colca valley, is that Wari influences arrived in the principal agricultural sector of Colca valley from adjacent Wari-influenced agricultural regions as part of a suite of agriculture related technologies. Developments in the Colca such as expanded terracing, irrigation, and other agricultural methods supposedly appear during the Middle Horizon in the Colca. In terms of the geographic origins of the Colca Middle Horizon style, Wernke (2003: 470) notes that these ceramics have stylistic similarities both with the low-lying areas like Chuquibamba and Majes, as well as with Wari-influenced ceramics in highland Cusco, but significantly the Middle Horizon and LIP styles in the Colca show no relation to Tiwanaku-related ceramics traditions.