The collapse of the Tiwanaku state around AD 1000 resulted in dramatic changes in the areas of its former colonies such as the Moquegua Valley, which featured the largest Tiwanaku communities outside the Altiplano. The inhabitants of these former colonies were forced to relocate to the areas north of Moquegua, including the Tambo River estuary (Arequipa Department, Province of Islay). This relocation has been confirmed at La Pampilla 1, where a large graveyard featuring funerary contexts of the postcollapse communities of Tiwanaku-Timulaca was found, with a calibrated 14C date between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries AD. In this article we discuss the results of excavations and analyses conducted at the La Pampilla 1 graveyard, the first systematically researched Tiwanaku site in the Tambo Valley: these findings confirm the existence of a relatively large, terminal-phase Tiwanaku population, represented by Tumilaca funerary contexts.

Presented article, based on the results of the latest archaeological research and the analysis of cataloged objects, provides a multi-faceted characteristic of the phenomenon of intentional and culturally conditioned cranial deformation in the pre-Columbian Nasca culture. In the light of interdisciplinary research and analysis of iconographic motifs we can notice that Nasca folks specifically identified themselves and recognized each other by particular physical attributes. Especially frontal-occipital cranial deformation is a dramatic example of the situational manipulation of ethnic identity. Results obtained in presented paper clearly demonstrate that the deformation methods and its objectives could be widely different, as well as not homogeneous within the southern coast of Peru.

Huarango tree monologue: Nazca culture development in the bioarchological perspectivePresented article provides a multi-faceted study of the factors that have led to the emergence, development and disappearance of the well-known early intermediate period Nazca culture. Obtained results clearly indicate that the cause of this complex and long-lasting civilization changes of an evolutionary nature were largely the environmental impact and climate changes at the turn of early intermediate period and middle horizon resulting from both external factors effects of the Super ENSO and human activity, such as the huarango copses deforestation. In this context, it is worth emphasizing the importance of widely understood paleoecological analyzes and bioarchaeological studies that are part of the so-called environmental archaeology — transdisciplinary research conducted in close cooperation with specialists from various scientific disciplines.