Omo Site M10 is a large Chen Chen Style Tiwanaku settlement site, second in size only to the Chen Chen type site itself. The Tiwanaku town of Omo M10 included residential groups of rectangular cane-walled houses, plazas and cemeteries that covered 8 hectares atop the southernmost bluff of the Omo site group. Omo M10 resembles Chen Chen in its deep middens and multiple floor deposits and extraordinarily high density of ceramic sherds, organic matter, textiles and other cultural materials.

Omo M10's habitation area was ringed by eighteen distinct Tiwanaku cemeteries. Burials were in stone lined cists or simple cylindrical pits. Individuals were dressed in Tiwanaku woolen tunics, placed in a seated flexed position facing east, and accompanied by entirely Tiwanaku-style offerings of serving ceramics, wooden spoons, basketry and other offerings.

Omo M10 is unique among peripheral Tiwanaku settlements for the presence of a Tiwanaku temple structure. M10's corporate architecture and the large cemetery population associated with the Chen Chen style sites suggests intensification of agricultural production, increasing Tiwanaku economic control, and the implementation of a shared ideology.

Back to Omo Homepage