**3. The Mojocoya culture, a nexus for understanding the cultural linkages between the Chilean Diaguita and Shipibo-Conibo peoples**

Affirming the linkages between the Chilean Diaguita and Peruvian Amazon Shipibo-Conibo peoples (which considers stylistic aspects, social practices, and material culture), and following the arguments of Lathrap [17], González [8] proposed the existence of a common antecedent between the two cultures, namely the Mojocoya culture of the Bolivian lowlands. As the cultural ancestor of the Shipibo people, Lathrap proposes the Cumancaya culture (Alto Ucayali), which also displays evident parallels with Chilean Diaguita culture.

González [8] confirmed the presence of patterns in Mojocoya iconography that were previously identified in Diaguita iconography, including the Wave A, stepped vertical reflection, and Chain C [1] patterns. The coincidences observed are not limited to the identification of minimal units (stepped borders, triangles combined with scrolling, simple stepped motifs, etc.), but also include symmetrical principles (or groups of them) that make up these units (reflection, displacement combined with translation, double specular reflection, horizontal reflection, rotation, and translation, among others). This structural similarity is a very good indicator of cultural interrelatedness [2].

According to Brockington et al. ([18], p. 4), the Mojocoya culture originated in the Amazon-Chaqueñas lowlands of Bolivia expanded into the areas around the highlands of Cochabamba and Chuquisaca. Based on their ceramics, two phases have been identified: an early, pre-Tiwanaku one (ca. 1-600 A.D.) and a later one (600 – 900 A.D.) that displays the influence of Tiwanaku. Mojocoya designs are executed in black and red on orange, with some use of white. The most frequent motifs include triangles; triangles with scrolling; stepped and triangular stepped motifs with scrolling; and zig-zagging lines in alternating colors, very often organized in bilateral or quadrilateral symmetry. We add to this list recorded examples of the labyrinth pattern A2 [1]. The main ceramic forms include simple convex bowls, tripod bowls, kero cups, and "effigy pieces" [18]. Monochrome ceramics include urns and other large vessels.

For the Mojocoya culture, archeologists have noted the practices of child burial in urns, cranial deformation, and the consumption of psychoactive powders. At the El Tambo site (1-600 AD), researchers have found copper bells with folded bases [18], which have also been recorded at Diaguita sites in Chile's semi-arid north. The authors emphasize that the Mojocoya sites are located near traffic routes connecting the Andean and Amazon regions, which would have facilitated the movement of people and goods among different ecozones. Along the same lines, Pereira and Brockington ([19], p. 2) hypothesize that the area southeast of Cochabamba would have operated as a focal point for social complexity, a place where a variety of social processes emerged over time, making it *"an area of historic interplay between environmental factors and Andean, Amazonian, and Chaqueño peoples, with a dynamic that had major repercussions and wielded significant influence even beyond its sphere of interaction as a zone."*
