Fotocopia.

Contenido: Abstract -- Introduction -- Memory of family -- The role of memory -- Memorializing the dead -- The place of andean kin -- Andean ritual architecture -- The evidence at Chiripa -- The early Chiripa period -- The middle Chiripa period -- The late Chiripa period -- Phase 1 -- Phase 2 -- Iconography at Chiripa -- In memory of the dead -- In sum -- Acknowledgments.

In the andes of south America, the ancestors have been known to be an important font of power and perpetuation since the spanish began writing about the area. The question of the prominence of ancestral worchip in early settled communities and its role in societal formation has been an ongoing discussion for Andean archaeologists. Recent archaeological research in the Titicaca Basin suggests that this dynamic was important in the earliest societal formation. This Thesis is based in part on the evidence that early architecture was for civic memorials rather than domestic habitation. In addition the artifactual remains suggests these constructions were in part for ancestor veneration. Community creation and social experimentation charged by ritual are illustrated at the Formative site of Chiripa on the Taraco Peninsula in Bolivia. To demostrate this thesis of community creation through rituals surrounding ancestral energies, the role of relational personhood, kinship, and social memory in community construction, based on practice theory is first outlined. Next the place of burials in the andean world and the creation of ancestors are dealt with. Finally the ritual and memorials as seen in the archaeological evidence spanning 1500 years is traced.

Ingles.