This study analyzes the main domestic and ritual components of the Formative village Pircas-1, located in the Tarapacá Valley in the lowlands of the Atacama Desert, based on stratigraphic excavations. The village’s dispersed settlement pattern and its architectural, cultural, and productive attributes are described, with particular emphasis on a set of exclusive ceremonial evidence that allow for the ideological evaluation of various iconographic contexts. The role of ritualism, which has gained prominence in recent decades through various external investigations, is assessed in the context of the emergence of complex Formative communities in one of the valleys near the Pacific during the early village stages of the South-Central Andes.
