Ceramic Sequences at Tierradentro and San Agustin, Colombia

Abstract

By utilizing archaeological associations of contemporaneity found at different sites and a few pieces of stratigraphic information, and by examining the patterning - the interrelationships of shape and decoration - of the pottery, it has been possible to define ten chronological units in the southern highlands of Colombia. The ten phases are grouped into two regional sequences: one with four phases at Tierradentro and another with six phases at San Agustin. Seriational as well as stratigraphic evidence suggests that the pottery from the burial caves of the Tierradentro region is older than the pottery associated with the shaft and chamber tombs of both Tierradentro and San Agustin and may date to the seventh or eighth centuries B.C. The earliest known shaft and chamber tombs appeared at San Agustin during the sixth century B.C. and, by the fifth century of the Christian era, were replaced by a new burial pattern, one consisting of interment in rectangular graves that were sometimes lined with stone slabs.