Intersite locations of precontact caravan traffic in the core of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile

We present an analysis of internodal caravan traffic that focuses on a transect in the central Atacama Desert from the Andean highlands to the Pacific coast during the Late Intermediate period to the Inca period (AD 900–1450). The mobility by Pica-Tarapacá social groups from the Pica oasis that acted as an intermediate node through several intersite features is considered through sites, peoples’ movements, complementary resources, funerary contexts, trans-desert routes, diet, and symbolic evidence, all of which were developed with a minimally ritualized social harmony. We determine that intense and complex caravan circuits covered the oases of the Tarapacá region and the Pacific coast, playing a key role in local sociopolitical leadership that expanded during the Inca period.