Khonkho through the Ages: Memory and Ritual in a Living Andean Landscape

ZOVAR, JENNIFER M.; MARSH, ERIK J.; OHNSTAD, ARIK T.

Chicago

Simposio; Simposio invitado en The Field Museum; 2022

Society for American Archaeology

John Janusek directed Proyecto Jach?a Machaca from 2002-2009, based around the Aymara village of Qhunqhu Liquiliqui, which is surrounded by three major archaeological sites. Khonkho Wankane was founded in the Late Formative and saw limited later reuse. Pukara de Khonkho was occupied during the Late Intermediate Period, and Ch?aucha de Khula Marka was in use during the Inca and Early Colonial periods. Today, these sites are incorporated into the living community through ritual activity and historic remembrance. While initially designed to investigate the rise of Tiwanaku, research in this area grew to consider how the lived environment has been constructed within a living landscape over more than 2000 years of occupation. Each site is emplaced within an environment that has long been inhabited by the remains of past human activity, and where other natural features are understood to have an agency of their own. In this presentation, we review the history of Proyecto Jach?a Machaca to assess what it has taught us about community formation within a living, historical landscape. We consider how the everyday and ritual practices of people living in different settlements at different times contributed to the creation of history and the construction of social memory.