Dendroarchaeological dates of prehistoric contexts in the Bolivian Altiplano

MARIANO S. MORALES; AXEL E. NIELSEN; RICARDO VILLALBA

Tucson

Conferencia; Second American Dendrochronology Conference; 2013

University of Arizona

Recent research in the Bolivian Altiplano of the Central Andes has yielded a network of Polylepis tarapacana chronologies that go back to the 13th century. This wood was regularly used by local populations in pre-Columbian times as raw material for beams, lintels, hooks and other architectural features in houses, chambers, and sepulchers. This study evaluated the potential of P. tarapacana samples to provide high resolution dates of significant archaeological features and/or events during the pre-Columbian era. This trial study was based on a chronology of chullpas (burial towers and storage chambers) in the southern Andean Altiplano. Using the 786-yr. long regional reference chronology of P. tarapacana, calendar years were assigned to woody pieces from pre-Hispanic chullpas. The dendroarchaeological results are consistent with contextual evidence and radiocarbon dates from other woody samples, suggesting that P. tarapacana has a high potential for providing annually-resolved tree-ring dates for archaeological contexts in the Altiplano.