Absolute Radiocarbon Chronology in the Formative Pottery Production Center of Santa Lucía, Cochabamba, Bolivia

Abstract

Santa Luca is a pottery production site dating to the Formative period (about 1600 BC to AD 200). It is located in the Cochabamba valleys of the eastern Bolivian Andes. The settlement consists of a residential area and a separate workshop area. A peripheral sector of ash mounds was used as refuse sites and burial grounds. The excavations yielded a total of 16 radiocarbon samples from all 3 sectors, which were dated at the Gliwice Radiocarbon Laboratory (Gliwice, Poland). The results from the deepest trench in the workshop sector (Trench 5) provide information for the stratigraphic sequence and help to define spatial and socioeconomic changes at around 600-500 BC with the beginning of the Late Formative or Santa Luca III phase. The 14C dates from Santa Lucía, therefore, contribute to a better definition of the existing regional Formative period phases and finally to a better understanding of the processes during the Formative period in the south-central Andes.