Looking from and to the places of power. Antofagasta de la Sierra between 1000 and 1500 AC

Abstract

We consider that certain aesthetic properties of the landscapes associated with visual perception can become sources of social power. Consequently, we discuss the centralized political organization model that would have left the inhabitants of the subsidiary basins in a passive rol regarding to a polarized source of power in the bottom basin, in the present town of Antofagasta de la Sierra, between ca. 1000-1500 years BC. This research focuses on the site Peñas Coloradas 3 cumbre (PC3c) located on top of a mesa in the secondary basin of Las Pitas, far away from the settlements proposed as economic centers of political power. Based on the analysis of form, visibility, and visualization, as well as excavations and chronologies, we interpret PC3c as a seat of social power in a sector that was previously considered to be part of socio-spatial periphery. We discuss and suggest that local autonomies remained in subsidiary basins even when there was a possible centralization of political power in the bottom basin since ca.1300 DC.