Jisk'a Iru Muqu

Jisk'a Iru Muqu is a pre-Columbian open-air site in the Aymara community of Jachacachi, 54 km southeast of Puno, Peru, at 3,890 m elevation in the Lake Titicaca Basin. Occupied from c. 3400-1600 BCE (Late Archaic to Early Formative), it was the first Archaic open-air site excavated in the Titicaca Basin, discovered by Mark Aldenderfer in 1994. Excavations (1995, 1999-2004) by UC Santa Barbara recovered obsidian tools, a gold necklace, and early domestic architecture showing reduced residential mobility. The site provides critical evidence for the transition from mobile foraging to settled village life in the south-central Andes.