At around 2000 years BP, there was a transition toward a settlement subsistence pattern related to-agro-pastoral societies. Early villages integrated more complex systems linking settlement with different functions. This new organization is known as the Formative Period and was characterized by a high degree of sedentarism and intensive pottery production. Little is known about the causes which produced the emergence of pottery in the southern Andes. At around 3000 years BP, there was a diversification of pottery shapes and styles on both sides of the Andes. Pottery appears in sites with a maritime economy such as the Faldas del Morro site (northern Chile, ca. 2800 years BP.) and in agro-pastoral societies such as Inca Cueva-Alero 1 (northwest of Argentina, c. 2900 years BP). It is not clear yet if this is a technology of local origins, alochtonous, or both. Mufioz postulated that the origin of pottery is related to two different traditions; one on the coast and the other on the altiplano. Pottery with geometric designs and feline figures dates to between 3000 and 1700 years BP in northern Chile and shows strong similarities with the altiplano tradition from the north of the Titicaca Lake. These stylistic patterns along with other evidences show a major social interaction in the context of these early villages. Toward the east of the cordillera in the tropical forest slope at around 2600 years BP, there is an intensive use of pottery known as the San Francisco Tradition. For Ventura, this tradition has a long local development and was utilized for early long-distance exchange between the valley of Tarija (Bolivia), the puna, and other eastern tropical valleys. Around 3000 BP, pottery occurred in the heads of the Quebrada de Humahuaca (in the northwest of Argentina) and in the neighboring puna.
Pottery allowed new and more efficient modes of food processing. It also became a useful means for transport and storage which amplified the spectrum of the exploited resources, both wild and domesticated. Along with other technologies such as metallurgy, textiles, and basketry, which not only had a utilitarian function, but they were also used as bases for symbolic representations. Between 3000 and 1400 years BP, agro-pastoralist society, which favored more stable and complex villages, was established in many areas of the highland. Around 2500 years BP, pottery was associated with this village pattern and began to diversify in multiple decorative techniques (incised, painted, and modeled) and styles which where used to define archaeological sequences in several sectors of the highlands of the Argentine Northwest. In general terms, these groups had circular houses dispersed throughout cultivated fields as well as houses which aggregated around a central patio and typically included tombs and a granary. In the valliserrana area of the Argentine Northwest, several styles or cultural entities were defined: Saujil (2400 to 1300 years BP), Tafi (2100 to 1100 years BP) and in the mesothermic valleys, Condorhuasi (2200 to 1500 years BP) and Cisinaga (2200 to 1400 years BP). Among them, Alamito (1800-1500 years BP) stands out due to the distinctive pattern of its villages. This pattern contains mounds, platforms, and enclosures which were made on stone and adobe and situated around communal or ritual plazas. It is not clear yet if the Alamito sites are villages with a specific and complex pattern or cultic centers related to the Condorhuasi.
Intense long - and short-distance trade of raw material, manufacture, as well as both ordinary objects and ceremonial items, characterize these village societies. This interaction favored information exchange and connected very distant groups from the Pacific coast to the sub-Andean hills and to the tropical forest. This exchange network was very ancient but during this period it became well established. The San Pedro de Atacama oasis in the puna of Chile, was probably the most important center of this network; from here llama caravans traveled widely across the South central Andes and Pacific coast. Exchange items included salt, obsidian, lithic shovels, pottery, as well as clay pipes and cebil (Anadenanthera sp.), a hallucinogenic drug from the tropical forest.
Late Formative societies developed during the first centuries of the Christian era, when there was an increment in demography and in the exchange network. During this period, there was a clear development of ritual practices. Fine pottery (polished and painted like the Vaquerias Style) appeared in a variety of sites and in different environments associated with the llama caravans and with long-distance interethnic contacts. This pottery is associated with a cul-tic phenomena represented by the use of hallucinogens in association with ritual paraphernalia such as tablets, tubes, clay and stone pipes, and mortars with feline motifs. The use of arsenical bronze as a sort of technology of power at a grand scale can be seen in objects such as plates with high symbolic value.
Between 1500 and 1000 years BP, there was a clear manifestation of social regional integration which included chiefdoms with increasing inherited social inequalities. A representation of this is found in the cultural group known as Aguada (c. 1600 to 1000 years BP) centered in the Ambato Valley (Catamarca, Argentine northwest), whose symbolic and ideological pattern expanded in the valleys of the Andes. Among this group, the feline complex plays a central role and was probably the expression of a shared pan-Andean cosmology. It has been proposed that the Aguada were linked with the Tiwanaku expansion, basically based on contacts - via the San Pedro de Atacama oasis - between these two areas. However, it seems that the Aguada cosmology is a local development related to the early cultic phenomena of El Mollar and El Alamito.
World History
